Would I need to work to rent or get a mortgage?

[Lisa4562]

My partner and I have 2 children
He works and I am a SAHM
We are looking to buy or rent a house .
Will I have to work in order to get a mortgage or be approved to rent?
Thank you

No, as long as his earnings are sufficient then you don't need to be working.

Well it depends how much money you have.

Entirely depends how much he earns, if he can cover the mortgage and support you all on his salary then great.

It will be based on household income and credit history of people named on the agreements. so how much you can borrow, how much interest you pay and what you will be approved for will be a combination of those pieces of data. If your partner is earning enough to get a big enough mortgage or be a small enough leasing risk then you won’t need to work, if not then you might need to to bump up affordability and loan allowance.

Nobody can answer this as it all depends on how much your partner earns and how much you want to borrow and for how long.

However if you’re not married you are making yourself incredibly vulnerable by not working.

It depends

There’s more things to consider than whether you need to be working or not.
As PP have said if he can cover the cost of the mortgage then you don’t need to but will you still be named on the title deeds? You’d be a non borrowing owner, not all lenders are agreeable to this so may reduce how many you can borrow from.
From a lender perspective would you get better rates too if you were working or could you borrow more? Depends on what you need from the house and the income capacity as a household.

Also if you’re not married and not on the title deeds what happens if you split?

Get married first. You are incredibly vulnerable if he buys a house and you aren’t part of that.

No, you don’t have to both work, as long as he earns enough. My nephew bought a house last year on just his income for mortgage purposes. The house is in both their names, though. But they don’t have any children. But definitely get married if you aren’t.

If you’re not working, you’ll be classed as a dependent and the amount he can borrow will be reduced. It varies by lender how much that’s by.

We got stung by this when we wanted to move while I was a SAHM. We ended up waiting until I went back to work to move. My new salary made almost zero difference to how much we could borrow as a couple, but the “dependents penalty” being gone made a big difference.

It completely depends on if you pass the affordability checks on one income.

If it’s a mortgage you’re after, I would have a mortgage advisor see what you might qualify for (a real person, not just an online calculator, those were way under for us).

No simply he will be offered a mortgage based on what he can afford , they do an affordability check and you will be seen as one of his dependents or costs,

Also for rent it’s an affordability check , normally the 30 times rule applies. So if monthly rent is 1500, he needs to earn 45k.

but it’s a bit odd to not know if you want to rent or buy?

If you are not already renting or buying where on earth are you living?

Where are you living now if you have 2 small children? All I can think is either living with parents or in social housing and rent is being paid by housing benefit, otherwise you must know how much you can potentially afford compared to what you pay now?