Moving To A Bigger Home

Some days in this job you get a real feel for the difference you can make to peoples lives. February 14th was one of those days.

I’m not sure how you spent your valentines evening and whether you buy into it, many do. I spent mine with a lovely family in Bristol. I first met the clients in 2016. They live in a 2-bed terrace property. As you enter their property through the front door you have a small kitchen on the right and then the only other room downstairs is their small front room. They told me that they had now outgrown the property and were desperate to move. With a new born baby girl and a 4-year-old daughter they needed more than the 2 bedrooms the property currently afforded them.

We looked at their income and outgoings and I concluded that they could not afford to borrow much more than they already owed. In addition, some adverse credit from a bad period in one of their lives meant the decision in principle we did failed. The repayments were too high with the adverse lenders. I couldn’t make it happen for them at that moment in time.

A plan is formulated.

The main bread winner is Mr. He works as a brickie and knew he could get better paid work by increasing his hours and moving company. Mrs couldn’t increase her hours at the time as she had to look after their newborn and wasn’t in a position to return to her job as a gym instructor. We agreed the situation would be different in 18 months. I would come back to see them in 2018.

Just after 6:15pm on Valentines night I pulled up to their property. Their little girl, now 6 proceeded to tell me that her little sister woke her up at night and she really wanted her own bedroom. It is moments like these that as a mortgage broker (in what many must consider to be a drab, boring job) you realise just how you can affect people’s lives.

We sat down and went through the finances and things looked a lot better. Mr’s income had gone up by nearly 10k. Mrs was also working again, when Mr got in from work Mrs would go out to work taking evening gym classes. These are hard working people that do what they must do to get somewhere in life.

Will they get the loan?

With their supporting paperwork in my hand and the fact find completed I agreed we would we sit there and run a decision in principle there and then, my romantic meal at home could wait.

It is always nerve wrecking running a decision in principle when so much relies on it. And especially so as one of the applicants had a default registered some years ago. I honestly did not know what the outcome would be. Even if the lender did accept them, would the loan amount be sufficient for them to move to a 3-bed house they had seen? I hit submit….the egg timer started spinning…decision accepted!

The mortgage had been agreed in principle and not only that, but they could borrow enough to allow them to buy the property they had been dreaming of living in. The 6-year-old would get her own bedroom too, great news!

As well as arranging the mortgage I will put in place income protection to cover them in case they can’t work and other relevant mortgage protection.

The dream maker!

This is not the most lucrative deal I will do this year, but it is probably the most emotional and heartfelt deal. To see the look on their faces when I told them they could finally sale and move home into a better suited property was magic. One of my colleagues said we are dream makers and not mortgage brokers, tonight I get that.

At times this job can be drab and boring with mountains of paperwork to complete for little reward but at the same time moments like these make it all worthwhile.

I got home at gone 8pm and ate chicken kievs and baked beans with my wife, who said romance was dead.