Contractor Mortgage + Help to buy Equity loan + London Area

[kunal]

Me and my wife have been looking for a mortgage for new homes in London with Help to Buy Equity Loan with a 5% deposit.
I have been in IT contracting for 9 months, while my wife is PAYE employee.

After long discussions with Mortgage advisors this is what I have concluded.

The only 2 Lenders that offer Help to Buy Equity Loan on new homes are

1. Halifax who currently have a borrowing limit £250,000 for Help To Buy new builds for contractors. Its impossible to buy a house in outskirts of London in this cost.
2. Newbury Building Society possibly do more than that, but the biggest issue is they only do mortgages outside the London M25 area as I understand from Contractor Money.

Why dont we have any lenders for contractors in London Area who would want to also use the 20% Help to Buy Equity for new homes. This must be shattering plans of many contractors. Do advise if there are any Lenders\Advisors which would help.

Thanks, Kunal

[cojak]

I thought that Help to Buy was for first time buyers and other who couldn't afford a home.

It doesn't apply to contractors (unless they are very junior/temps) so it's not shattering anyone's plans.

(You say homes - you're not thinking of Buy to Let are you?)

[jamesbrown]

In general, I don't think many contractors will be using H2B, as they are typically well-paid and would be able to stump up a substantially larger deposit than 5%. That being said, perhaps you need to calibrate your expectations to what is possible, i.e. to purchase a flat for around 250k. Otherwise, it's fairly obvious that you'll either need to rent or commute. If you search CUK, you'll find many threads on contractor mortgagers and many good brokers who may be able to offer advice, although I suspect that few of them deal with H2B.

[TheFaQQer]

This must be shattering plans of many contractors.

I doubt it. What's a mortgage?

[northernladuk]

I doubt it. What's a mortgage?

Something for little people.

[MrWebDev]

I have looked into this too Kunal. It's interesting what you mention regarding lenders, I didn't realise this. However what I would say is that all of the London based 'affordable' housing schemes will only allow people with a maximum combined income of £60K I believe. Now, if you're a contractor, it's quite likely you're going to be bringing home more than that a year, especially if combined with a partner. The other problem is the cost of homes in London are so high that if you're earning under £60K you're almost not going to be able to afford the mortgage if you don't have a very large deposit.

As far as I'm concerned I'm building up a deposits savings warchest that will allow me to put a fairly large amount down (around 20%) and which also gives me access to a far wider range of mortgages.