How long for mortgage application

[AmateurHour]

I’m a (terrified) first time buyer, and my mortgage application went in on Monday. I heard that in June 50% of applications were declined- a lot more than the usual 10% which has terrified me and made me think mine will also be declined.

Has anyone recently had a recent approval/decline? How long did it take to get a result? If you were declined, do you know why?

I think it’s actually 4.75x my salary... if that makes it any better 😬

I'm not sure, we were looking into it as we need to remortgage in the next 6 months and as I'm self employed without 3 years accounts we were investigating if my husband would qualify for a mortgage on his own. We never got further than speaking to a broker, but were advised that some lenders won't consider at all (unlikely to be your case if you have an agreement in principle) and others would consider but have quotas, so they wouldn't agree if a certain percentage of their overall lending was based on 5x salary.

I'm afraid to say that the fact that your mortgage adviser isn't over confident would also worry me.

She’s confident in all the bits I’m not confident about. But is worried about one element they said to her on the phone is absolutely fine, and a friend of mine with the same set up work wise, has a mortgage with the same lender so I feel quite confident about that bit, even though she isn’t.

FCA regulations mean that lenders can only make 15% of their mortgage offers higher than a 4.5x salary multiple. In practice, this means they reserve this 15% for the lowest risk customers, such as those with very large deposits, very high income to expenditure calcs, or working in select professions with excellent promotion pathways.

If your broker has out you forward to a lender then she must be reasonably confident that you’d qualify to be one of the 15%; although if she didn’t explain the above to you then honestly I’d be a little bit concerned whether she was making the best choices.

My application recently (about a month ago) got approved within three days of my broker submitting it - this was with Halifax. It was only a 60% LTV and 3 x salary though, so very possibly only desktop approved. If your working arrangements, income and salary multiple has some unusual or irregular features and it has to go to underwriters, it’s probably going to take at least a couple of weeks.

I’ve read about it online but there’s just so much to sift through!

If I got a MIP for it it’s more likely though, right? Even if it’s a small chance overall 😬

-this is exactly what I’m afraid of happening.

Mine is an 80% loan, just under 5x my salary. Fairly simple, but some lenders count my income as from 2 jobs rather than one, that bit is a bit tricky. But barclays apparently are happy to count it as just 1.

Bank has booked in a valuation of the property!! They asked for clarification of my salary from my mortgage advisor on Tuesday but have moved to do a valuation, feels like a good step!

That sounds very positive :)

I hope it doesn’t actually ‘count’ as a good step! I’m trying to not read too much into it, whist also trying to chill out a bit because of it!!

*DOES

F

Mortgage offer just subject to tomorrow’s valuation now, apparently that should take about a week for them to process!

Fingers crossed for you! I got my offer a few days after the valuation which apparently was really quick. My buyers took about 3 weeks x

Hi all

If we've had a decision in principle and Halifax have instructed the valuation, does that mean that the offer is approved (so long as they're satisfied of the value of the property)?

Also, once the mortgage offer is made does anyone know how long we'll be waiting before exchange? It's a new build, so we are presuming it'll be simultaneous exchange / completion but just wondered if anyone knew what steps need to be taken between mortgage offer and exchange?

Thanks

@easterflowerss your solicitor will be doing searches and enquiries, it'll depend on the outcome of these as to how quickly exchange will be, though in my experience these are quicker with a new build. The valuation is quicker too as desktop. Did you use the developer's recommended solicitors?

If it wasn't for our sale we took about 6 weeks to be ready to exchange for our new build purchase.

[quote notheragain4]@easterflowerss your solicitor will be doing searches and enquiries, it'll depend on the outcome of these as to how quickly exchange will be, though in my experience these are quicker with a new build. The valuation is quicker too as desktop. Did you use the developer's recommended solicitors?

If it wasn't for our sale we took about 6 weeks to be ready to exchange for our new build purchase.[/quote]
We didn't use the developer's solicitors as we had family friends do it instead (although the developer did suggest we used theirs, so slightly regretting this move if it holds things up)!

For context we gave up the lease on our rented place at the beginning of March (as we would have had to extend for another year otherwise) thinking we'd be in somewhere soon. So we've been staying with family for 4 months so very desperate to be in now

@easterflowerss I only ask as their recommended solicitors tend to be very quick as they want to keep being recommended lol, but hopefully as you are acquainted with yours they will work quickly for you, it's just shocking hearing how slow some solicitors are on other threads I'm on. New builds tend to be quite straight forward in terms of conveyancing, so hopefully not much longer for you! Is the house ready to move into?

[quote notheragain4]@easterflowerss I only ask as their recommended solicitors tend to be very quick as they want to keep being recommended lol, but hopefully as you are acquainted with yours they will work quickly for you, it's just shocking hearing how slow some solicitors are on other threads I'm on. New builds tend to be quite straight forward in terms of conveyancing, so hopefully not much longer for you! Is the house ready to move into? [/quote]
we've asked the developer to put fitted wardrobes into the master bedroom, but otherwise yeah it's totally ready to go. We've just been told our valuation is booked for 6th August.

So theoretically if we could have all of the mortgage stuff sorted by the end of next week, do you know how long we should be waiting for searches? I presume they'll be relatively basic with a new build but I don't know whether that means days, weeks or months 🙈

Sorry for all the questions, FTB here and just sooo desperate to be in ASAP. Also want to start ordering furniture as soon as we can!

@easterflowerss - searches for new builds conversely are often more complex than for established buildings because the potential for something to go wrong is much higher with a new build purchase – issues like non compliance with planning regulations, failure to arrange NHBC inspections, incomplete agreements for roads and sewers, failure to plan for the future maintenance of common parts, restrictive covenants on the freehold land and so on. It’s why it’s often beneficial to go with the developer’s solicitors, because they’re au fait with what to look into.

I’d be assuming at least two - three weeks for searches, particularly given Covid related stuff slowing things down.

@ComtesseDeSpair our searches with our new build came back last month in less than a week! New builds have an obligation to exchange within 28 days so the process has a lot of pressure behind it.

@easterflowerss hopefully your solicitor will have already requested the searches, it's usually done alongside the mortgage application process (when buying a new build) did you have an exchange deadline?

@notheragain4 exchange within 28 days of what? Of paying the holding deposit?

@ComtesseDeSpair thanks so much for this. Searches were ordered last week so hopefully mid August might be doable.

We haven't got any set date for exchange, bar a target date of mid August. There's a residents management company to deal with common parts but no idea about the rest of those bits so maybe end of August is more likely 😩😔