Buying a house, Help2Buy

[Delvis]

Hi all,

So looking at getting a house through Help 2 Buy

Can anyone who has done this recently lay it out to me in bullet points of the process ? Trying to get this information is like getting blood out of a stone.

We've seen the house, we like it, we've got a mortgage in principle from an external mortgage advisor, we've talked to the developers mortgage checkers. Wtf now?

 

[Junglist]

We're going through this at the moment. We used a broker (Key Solutions) and they practically did all the HTB stuff for us. But the steps we took.

1. Visited house and decided we liked it
2. Called up a broker who then got us the Agreement in Principle.
3. Reserved house
4. Got broker to find us the best mortgage deal
5. Had a few offers. we picked one that allowed us to keep the benefits (Halifax didn't agree with us getting so much for 'free')
6. Sent all of our payslips etc to broker
7. they sent us a Help to Buy document and told us what bits to fill out
8. sent that back - all approved and that was it

If you have a decent broker/mortgage advisor they should be able to do most of it for you. Had it not been for Covid it would've been a scarily easy process. We went from only really thinking about buying to having a mortgage approved within about 2/3 weeks. If it wasn't for certain delays we would've been in the house within 3 months!

Though we didn't even bother looking at any other properties. We had a few lined up we wanted to see, but the one we went with was the first we went to and we cancelled the others. Helps when you know what you want

 

[Delvis]

We're going through this at the moment. We used a broker (Key Solutions) and they practically did all the HTB stuff for us. But the steps we took.

1. Visited house and decided we liked it
2. Called up a broker who then got us the Agreement in Principle.
3. Reserved house
4. Got broker to find us the best mortgage deal
5. Had a few offers. we picked one that allowed us to keep the benefits (Halifax didn't agree with us getting so much for 'free')
6. Sent all of our payslips etc to broker
7. they sent us a Help to Buy document and told us what bits to fill out
8. sent that back - all approved and that was it

Thanks appreciate it.
Seems easier than mine already!

We spoke to a mortgage advisor, who got a mortgage in principle drawn up.
We've seen a place and registered interest.
We HAVE to use the developers mortgage people to check us over despite having a mortgage in principle already.

Beyond that nothing has really been explained but I'm already getting stressed

I'm calling the developer tomorrow, might be reserving? Who knows if I'm honest!

 

[Junglist]

Thanks appreciate it.
Seems easier than mine already!

We spoke to a mortgage advisor, who got a mortgage in principle drawn up.
We've seen a place and registered interest.
We HAVE to use the developers mortgage people to check us over despite having a mortgage in principle already.

Beyond that nothing has really been explained but I'm already getting stressed

I'm calling the developer tomorrow, might be reserving? Who knows if I'm honest!

Yeah we've been quite lucky with how easy the whole process has been. It's not finished yet but so far so good!

May be worth asking your mortgage advisor if they are able to also do the HTB paperwork? If not then I can recommend Key Solutions and they're free (well, they get paid from the bank) so nothing comes out of your pocket. I'd expect most advisors could do it though.

Bizarre that you have to use their mortgage people - they're not going to try and sting you are they?

Oh, don't feel bad about being stressed! I make it sound like ours was super easy, which it honestly was, but that didn't stop me worrying at every step of the way. The worst worry for me was waiting for the formal mortgage application. Despite having an agreement in principle and everyone telling me it'll be fine I felt like I couldn't relax until the offer was through.

We had to extend our offer last month and then I worried about that despite our situations not changing from what they were back in Dec/Jan

If you like it, reserve it! Then it's time to get excited! We pop round to the building site every other day to check on progress and now the house is built we can't see much that's going on but we probably look mental popping up each day and looking through the fences

 

[Mucky_Pup]

Either the mortgage broker we used or our solicitors did all the help to buy stuff for us, can't remember who, we never got involved with it much bar filling out a few standard information forms.

 

[fastwunz]

Just remember the 20% you have to pay back when you sell it on - we did HTB on our place and have just sold it for £152,000 more than we paid for it 4 years ago.

HTB has helped us massively

 

[Raymond Lin]

We're going through this at the moment. We used a broker (Key Solutions) and they practically did all the HTB stuff for us. But the steps we took.

1. Visited house and decided we liked it
2. Called up a broker who then got us the Agreement in Principle.
3. Reserved house
4. Got broker to find us the best mortgage deal
5. Had a few offers. we picked one that allowed us to keep the benefits (Halifax didn't agree with us getting so much for 'free')
6. Sent all of our payslips etc to broker
7. they sent us a Help to Buy document and told us what bits to fill out
8. sent that back - all approved and that was it

If you have a decent broker/mortgage advisor they should be able to do most of it for you. Had it not been for Covid it would've been a scarily easy process. We went from only really thinking about buying to having a mortgage approved within about 2/3 weeks. If it wasn't for certain delays we would've been in the house within 3 months!

Though we didn't even bother looking at any other properties. We had a few lined up we wanted to see, but the one we went with was the first we went to and we cancelled the others. Helps when you know what you want

Question, how did you pick your mortgage broker?

 

[Junglist]

Question, how did you pick your mortgage broker?

Funnily enough it was pure chance. When we went to view the house we were literally at about 1 week of thinking "shall we stop renting and get our own place" So we went to a development that was in the area we both like just to see what we could get for our money. We ended up really liking the showroom and decided there and then that it was the place for us. After talking to the sales person she gave us two broker cards that she recommended but told us to feel free to find out own. It was a Sunday so the first one we called was shut so we just called the second card, they answered and also turned out to be the key to making everything go smoothly.

I'm sure all brokers are decent. Maybe some better than others but the ones we used really made the whole process really easily considering neither of us had a clue of what to do. A cousin of mine asked me to check out his mortgage adviser which we did but even he said the deals they got us were really good so we're really happy with the service we got from them plus it was free

Sorry if that's a lot of waffle for essentially saying - it was just the first we tried

 

[Raymond Lin]

Funnily enough it was pure chance. When we went to view the house we were literally at about 1 week of thinking "shall we stop renting and get our own place" So we went to a development that was in the area we both like just to see what we could get for our money. We ended up really liking the showroom and decided there and then that it was the place for us. After talking to the sales person she gave us two broker cards that she recommended but told us to feel free to find out own. It was a Sunday so the first one we called was shut so we just called the second card, they answered and also turned out to be the key to making everything go smoothly.

I'm sure all brokers are decent. Maybe some better than others but the ones we used really made the whole process really easily considering neither of us had a clue of what to do. A cousin of mine asked me to check out his mortgage adviser which we did but even he said the deals they got us were really good so we're really happy with the service we got from them plus it was free

Sorry if that's a lot of waffle for essentially saying - it was just the first we tried

Thanks, are they local, do you meet in person or all done via email/telephone?

 

[Junglist]

Thanks, are they local, do you meet in person or all done via email/telephone?

Sort of, they're based in the South West. We are in Bristol and they're about 25 miles down the road in Weston-Super-Mare. Never had to meet them was initially done mostly over telephone and email. Never had any issues getting in contact with them whenever I needed them and always responded quickly to emails

https://www.ksmortgages.co.uk/

That's who I went with. I don't think it matters where you are in the country though. They even did the bits we didn't think about such as house and income insurances

 

[Raymond Lin]

Sort of, they're based in the South West. We are in Bristol and they're about 25 miles down the road in Weston-Super-Mare. Never had to meet them was initially done mostly over telephone and email. Never had any issues getting in contact with them whenever I needed them and always responded quickly to emails

https://www.ksmortgages.co.uk/

That's who I went with. I don't think it matters where you are in the country though. They even did the bits we didn't think about such as house and income insurances

Thank you, and how does the fee work? i mean how much do they charge/get paid?

 

[Junglist]

Thank you, and how does the fee work? i mean how much do they charge/get paid?

So they get paid by the bank, to us/you the service is completely free. I think they get about £1000 from whichever bank provides the mortgage. They're a full market broker that gets the same from all of them so it doesn't matter who you go with to them

 

[Raymond Lin]

So they get paid by the bank, to us/you the service is completely free. I think they get about £1000 from whichever bank provides the mortgage. They're a full market broker that gets the same from all of them so it doesn't matter who you go with to them

Oh I see, the reason is that I have a telephone interview with Barclays next week for AIP but now wondering if I should cancel and just go to a broker instead.

 

[Haze]

I am trying to get on the housing ladder as a single person, all these schemes seem like a massive con to me

 

[Junglist]

Oh I see, the reason is that I have a telephone interview with Barclays next week for AIP but now wondering if I should cancel and just go to a broker instead.

I mean it probably wont hurt to have the call with Barclays (which is who we actually went with in the end) but I'd say give a broker a call and make them do the leg work for you and they may be able to access you a better deal

 

[HungryHippos]

Oh I see, the reason is that I have a telephone interview with Barclays next week for AIP but now wondering if I should cancel and just go to a broker instead.

I've used ksmortgages in the past, nothing special but they were fine.

As @Junglist said they get paid by the bank for referring rather than you, so no harm in using them really.

I prefer not to fill in mortgage paperwork so I've always gone to a broker, I've never paid a broker a fee and I'm on my 3rd or 4th one now.

 

[Junglist]

Yeah there could well be better ones out there as this is the only one we've used but haven't got a bad word to say about them really.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I've used ksmortgages in the past, nothing special but they were fine.

As @Junglist said they get paid by the bank for referring rather than you, so no harm in using them really.

I prefer not to fill in mortgage paperwork so I've always gone to a broker, I've never paid a broker a fee and I'm on my 3rd or 4th one now.

who else do you recommend?

 

[HangTime]

Bizarre that you have to use their mortgage people - they're not going to try and sting you are they?

It's not bizarre, it's just another money-spinner for them. They direct people to their mortgage advisors under the auspices of wanting to validate they can afford to buy the property, but really they they will have some sort of kick-back arrangement whereby if the mortgage advisor can persuade you to go with them some money will change hands somewhere behind the scenes. The same happens with estate agents, they will often partner with an advisor - house builders and estate agents can both supply streams of people who need mortgages so for a small cut they will push people towards whomever they are partnered with on the mortgage side.

 

[HungryHippos]

who else do you recommend?

It's much of a muchness really, they were fine just a few problems with some maths between them and the bank when it came to doing the mortgage and working out the deposit.

Hard to go above and beyond in this industry though, so I was happy enough with the service in the end when all was said and done.

They were a bit pushy on the insurance though, but I guess most brokers will be because they want their cut of the referral cash.