New Job/Remortgage - Should I wait?

[scarletmonkey]

Our mortgage deal is up for renewal early next year and I’ve been putting feelers out for a new job closer to home. I currently work 30 miles away from home, and over the years the commute has got worse and worse until now quite often I spend 3.5 hours a day driving what used to take me an hour each way. Due to planned permanent “improvements” it’s only going to get worse. So I want something closer to home, because of the long commute as I am very reliant on DH to collect the children from child care as I physically cannot be there before they close.

DH is due to graduate this year with a degree and will also be looking for a new job (he’s been studying part time for the past several years) and cannot wait to do this. But, because I’m away for around 11 hours of the day, he’s very limited in what he could apply for as he’d have to take something close to home for child care reasons, we have no family nearby that could help.

I’ve seen jobs suitable for me coming up at a similar company, similar pay scale to what I’m on now in the town where we live. Initially it would be less money, but as I went up the scale I’d be earning a similar amount eventually, but long term we’d be better off because the commuting costs would be a lot less, I’d save so much time on my journey and be home a bit more instead of on the motorway.

But, I’m concerned that we’d struggle to get a new or better deal on our mortgage if we are both in relatively new jobs and myself on a lower salary. On paper it would be about 3000-4000PA less, but in reality less of a hit because of reduced commuting costs and there are a few other places we could trim a bit. However if DH got another job as a graduate, it would almost certainly be more than he’s currently on, just above NMW, so it might well even out.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Should I try and stick this out for another year until we get the new mortgage deal and then go for something else job wise?

How bad would it look to a mortgage adviser if we were both in jobs for less than a year in terms of a new deal? We’d probably be looking for about 75-80% LTV.

If you are staying with the same lender, not borrowing any more money and not changing the term of your mortgage your income won't be assessed when switching to a new deal.

Thanks for your reply. We hadn't planned on changing lender really, but I had seen a fixed term with another lender that had a better interest rate than our current first time buyer deal, which meant we could have brought the term of the mortgage down while keeping the monthly payment the same. That is assuming it was still available when the time comes to change.

But, if sticking with the current lender means they are going to dig around less because they "know" us, then we'll stick with who we are with.If it's just a switch rather than all the jumping through financial hoops we had the first time round!

It's very easy to switch with the same lender. No credit checks etc. You can usually do it on line too.
But if you want to shop around for a new deal you will need to jump though all the same hoops you dos when you bought.

We have had a lot of financial changes in the past year so when it came to the end of our fixed rate I went direct to Halifax (our current lender) as was told by our broker that due to the drop in income we would be unlikely to be able to remortgage with another bank for the amount we needed. I got a better fixed rate and increased our term all over the phone. No income checks were required so it worked out well for us.

If you do switch lender then there are a few things to take into account:
If you are in your probationary period in a new job you will probably have problems - it's classed as less stable employment and some lenders have policy rules about not giving a mortgage until someone is out probationary period (annoying considering a lot of people move/remortgage when they change jobs!)
There are 2 factors to consider with reduced income - 1 is the total amount you can borrow (based on joint income or highest earner income multiplier) and the second is affordability where you have to show you have enough left each month to pay your mortgage. As your commute costs would reduce if you changed jobs I'm guessing that your affordability would be similar even with a slightly lower income so it shouldn't be a problem unless you are already at the maximum mortgage you are allowed on your salary. Work out how many times your salary you'll be needing to borrow to remortgage and how many times you'd your new (reduced) salary that would be.
Overall 3.5 hours a day is a massive commute - I'd be inclined to go for changing jobs and work out the best mortgage deal at the time.

That's very reassuring to know if something comes up job wise between now and then