How accurate are online mortgage calculators?

[m0therofdragons]

Basically we love a house but would need to borrow 30k more than the online calculator says. Is there any chance we'd get more if we put a case together and had a meeting? House comes with annex so we could make additional income with a lodger?

You might be best going via a mortgage broker, they'll look at your spending patterns and calculate what you can afford month-to-month in repayments.
Word of caution however, if you stretch yourself to get this house, can you afford rate rises/extra household bills/moving fees/stamp duty/renovations? Any or all of those could tip you over the edge of your budget.

I think we can afford it with some left each month and I'm in a job where I get set pay increases each year so know that I'm 2 years we'd be even more comfortable. It's just whether we can convince someone to lend that much?

YY - speak to a broker. For what it's worth I found these calculators accurate if you're one straightforward borrower with no debt, anything else and other factors come into play. Separately, I've always found Halifax the most lenient on lending/multiples, and I'm four mortgages in.

These days they are required to stress test you to about 7% and take into account your regular spending, because they assume that you won't cut down to afford a bigger mortgage, even on discretionary spends, which seems a bit odd to me, but there you go.

You can only talk to a broker and see what they say.

The mortgage calculators are as accurate as the info going on, and an experienced broker will know what each institution requires to best match you up.

Bear in mind lodger income, future salary raises etc won't be taken into account.

I think the general rule is the calculators are on the generous side to reel you in and any additional info is likely to reduce the offer, not increase it.

It also depends what proportion of the total loan £30k represents and what that is compared to your salaries.

Only a broker can really help you here- I definitely wouldn't be going to each lender yourself and trying.

See 10 years ago we got much better deals going to nationwide directly than through a broker. Similarly with our first house HSBC was our bank and I was in changing my married name and they asked if I was interested in mortgages and I said their online calculator showed they wouldn't lend us enough to buy even a garage. She went and got someone who sat with me and they offered us considerably more face to face.

We did lots of calculations on the cost of running our house for a month and made sure we could afford it in one salary.
Which we can, if we economise. This was in case either one of us wasn't working for any reason.

We went for a slightly cheaper house as a result, but didn't not want the worry and stress!

10 years ago people made decisions on mortgages, now it's pretty much just computers.

A whole of market broker will look at your circumstances and be able to tell you if it's possible with any lenders.

If you make applications directly without knowing if they will lend you what you need then you're likely to harm your credit file with the checks.