As I mentioned in my bio, me and Josh are currently in the first stages of buying our first home together as moving from my parents, to his mums, to my grans just isn’t working for us anymore and we need our own space. We’ve proved we can put up with each other for the past two and half years so we got in touch with a financial advisor/mortgage advisor.
So, a couple of months before Christmas last year we applied for an AIP (agreement in principle) with a number of different banks. Unfortunately, as Josh is self employed and only had 2 years books, we were unable to borrow any money so we waited until April this year when Josh would have 3 years books.
Everything seemed to be running smoothly, we had all the paper work we needed, bank statements and pay slips for the past 3 months etc. Obviously Josh being self employed, he had to provide much more evidence of his outgoings, income, tax etc.
Now at the end of June, we are still awaiting an agreement in principle, to now be told that I have no credit history! Even though I thought that phone contracts and anything I’ve bought on finance before would’ve counted towards this but it doesn’t. So for any of you looking for a mortgage, get a credit card and build your credit score up. Use it for small things, such as petrol, food etc. and pay it off straight away.
I’ve just got one through Barclays, with 25 months free interest on purchases. There are a number of banks out there that provide different credit cards with different interest rates so make sure you do a little research. The only reason I went for Barclay’s is because Josh has a number of credit cards with them so he knows how they work so it’s good that I can have someone to rely on as both my parents have never used credit cards before.
I can’t express how disappointed I feel. I’m beginning to think we will never be in our own home by this Christmas which is what I was hoping for. Nevertheless, I will remain optimistic and look at this as a blessing and that this extra time will only push me to save more and hopefully when the time comes, I am better off financially! Oh and I guess that means we can have a holiday somewhere this year too! Yay!
Hey, just another piece of advice to add on: paying off a credit card straight away isn’t what they want necessarily! Use it for larger purchases, don’t exceed the limit or miss a payment, but you need to use it to be able to build credit up.
I’ve had years of using it and paying off straight away and I was told by Barclays to let some of it sit on the card for a month or so. It shows you can be trusted to pay off larger sums.
It’s also lovely to know the mortgage struggle is as painful for others as it is for us.
Love your blog btw. Used it in a lesson the other day for how a modern lifestyle is represented. ?
Hey Sarah!
Thanks for the advice! I haven’t used it yet and I’m planning on investing on a good camera so I can take some higher quality images.
That’s lovely to hear! Thank you for that!
xo
Hey Llana, we are going through buying a house at the moment too, have you tried the Cumberland building society for your mortgage? I don’t have a credit card I’ve just had phone contracts and car finance and didn’t have any issues with the credit check x
Hi Ella!
We tried the Cumberland first time around before Christmas but haven’t been back because we’ve used an independent mortgage advisor.
That’s strange, I wonder if it’s because you’ve had a car on finance as thats quite a big amount to borrow? I’ve never had anything worth a lot of money on finance..
xo
Yeah that could well be it. I’ve had a couple as well so that’s probably built it up. Have you got one of those help to buy isa’s? They’re really good for helping you save money up and you get the government bonus, like you, we have ended up waiting a bit longer than we hoped but it gave us time to save up some more which was a blessing! I would also recommend to start buying stuff you’ll need e.g kitchen stuff because that cost all builds up as well! X
I don’t have a help to buy ISA, I should probably think about opening one of those up! You can’t have another saving’s account though if you have one of those though can you?
I have started! Haha, Josh thinks I am mad but buying things gradually will definitely help when we eventually get our own place!
xo