When looking for a new home, the exciting part is browsing the online portals, speaking to agents and going on viewings. But if you miss out on this step, you may regret it if you find yourself in a position where you have found a house you love.
A mortgage in principle isn’t the loan itself. It’s a lender’s early view on how much they’d be willing to lend you, based on a soft check of your income, deposit and financial position. But that small piece of paper can make a real difference to how your search unfolds.
Sellers and agents take you more seriously
When two similar offers land on a seller’s kitchen table, the buyer with a mortgage in principle almost always has the edge.
It tells the seller (and their agent) that your budget is real, your finances are ready, and if they say yes you are much more likely to follow through. In a busy market, and much of ours from Battle to Tenterden, certainly is, that quiet reassurance can be the difference between an offer accepted and an offer politely set to one side.
You know exactly what you’re looking at
There’s no worse feeling than falling for a home only to discover it’s twenty thousand pounds out of reach. A mortgage in principle sets your realistic budget in stone before you begin viewing, so every property you look at is genuinely on the table.
That saves you time, energy, and the emotional wear and tear of chasing something that was never going to work.
It moves faster than people think
Most buyers imagine this step takes weeks. In reality, once you’ve gathered the basics such as payslips, ID, proof of deposit and a few bank statements, a good broker can usually turn one around fairly quickly.
They tend to last around ninety days, so timing yours just before you start serious viewing is ideal.
A broker is often the easier route
You can go directly to your bank, but a broker looks across the whole market and often finds a better fit and a better rate.
If you’re not sure who to speak to, that’s exactly the sort of thing we’re happy to help with. We work alongside good, local brokers day in day out, and can point you in a sensible direction without any pressure.
Getting your mortgage in principle sorted first isn’t the exciting part of buying a home. But it’s the step that makes every step after it a great deal smoother.
If you’d like a quick, informal chat about the best order to do things or simply about what’s on the market from Bexhill to Rye at the moment, we’d love to hear from you. Early conversations tend to ensure the process is much smoother.
