Myself and my partner have been holding back on buying a home for the last few years and are wondering if now is a good time to go for it.
We have a good deposit saved but have not approached any banks yet to apply for a mortgage but we recently saw a few houses that we are interested in viewing, I have a few questions and if anyone can offer sound advice I would be really grateful.
First things first, the mortgage. We need to go and apply but not sure how this works, do you get approved in principal first or do you go in with all your payslips etc? And how long does the approval last for? I know from reading the threads here that AIB is offering the best rate to FTB's but, that being accepted is not guaranteed in this climate. My OH has a great credit rating and has saved solidly for the last 3 years, has a good job with good wages. I have a stable part time job but always seem to get refused for credit (although I did have a lot on my credit card at one stage but that has been paid off, I checked my credit rating and there doesn't appear to be anything against me) OH would easily get approved for the mortgage by himself so should we go in joint or just let him since I seem to have been refused a lot before? (I don't want it affecting our application)
My second question is about bidding for the house. We are viewing 3 houses 1 is €285,000 in a really nice area that we would definately like to live in we can't believe the price actually so if we like the house and decide to put a bid in, should we go much lower than this since it seems like a great bargain anyway? The other houses are 300 and 359 so how much lower would we want to be going for them and can you assume that the price you see is significanly more than the price you should be offering? I read the thread here about how to bid and got some good tips there but just want to be confident about it so I can put the tips to use.
Thanks for reading and hope that's not too confusing!
We have a good deposit saved but have not approached any banks yet to apply for a mortgage but we recently saw a few houses that we are interested in viewing, I have a few questions and if anyone can offer sound advice I would be really grateful.
First things first, the mortgage. We need to go and apply but not sure how this works, do you get approved in principal first or do you go in with all your payslips etc? And how long does the approval last for? I know from reading the threads here that AIB is offering the best rate to FTB's but, that being accepted is not guaranteed in this climate. My OH has a great credit rating and has saved solidly for the last 3 years, has a good job with good wages. I have a stable part time job but always seem to get refused for credit (although I did have a lot on my credit card at one stage but that has been paid off, I checked my credit rating and there doesn't appear to be anything against me) OH would easily get approved for the mortgage by himself so should we go in joint or just let him since I seem to have been refused a lot before? (I don't want it affecting our application)
My second question is about bidding for the house. We are viewing 3 houses 1 is €285,000 in a really nice area that we would definately like to live in we can't believe the price actually so if we like the house and decide to put a bid in, should we go much lower than this since it seems like a great bargain anyway? The other houses are 300 and 359 so how much lower would we want to be going for them and can you assume that the price you see is significanly more than the price you should be offering? I read the thread here about how to bid and got some good tips there but just want to be confident about it so I can put the tips to use.
Thanks for reading and hope that's not too confusing!