Overwhelmed by all the mortgage advise you are being given?

First, get some free advice.  The company should not charge you for advice. They are there to help you through the process. If they want to charge you, then it may not be the best advice.

Next, decide how much you can afford to borrow. Be realistic on how much you can pay on a mortgage each month. Then look for houses in your price range.

Once you find a house, find a broker that deals in mortgages. They are much more helpful with people who have a house in mind because that is how they make their money. They only get paid when the mortgage is in place so they will try to get the mortgage for you.

The first thing you ask a broker is, “Do you provide a whole of market quotation?” If they do not, then simply thank them for their time and walk out. Not getting a whole of market quotation can cost you a lot of money.

After getting a first quotation, get a second quotation. You need at least two quotations. It can either be from two brokers or one broker and one from the high street.

Once you find a broker with a good quote, you can proceed to buying the house.

Statistics show that Mortgage Lenders have turned down almost 9% of qualifying mortgage applications this year, compared to 2.3% in 2007.

Comparison website Moneysupermarket claimed that all the applications were vetted prior to submission and appeared to match the product criteria, but were subsequently rejected when lenders found further reasons to throw them out.

Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com, said: “Lending criteria has become too strict – even vetted applications that we would expect to be accepted without a hitch are being rejected.

“Credit histories play an important part in the process and any blemishes will make finding a mortgage increasingly difficult. All debt repayments – credit cards, loans, store cards etc – must be made on time.

“Details of all missed repayments are held on your personal files for six years and may count against you when your credit rating is accessed.

“Assessing affordability is key for lenders and everyone has to be much more realistic about what they can borrow. The most anyone can reasonably hope for is four times their salary – anything over this is more likely to be rejected.

“And you can’t expect lenders to take overtime or commission into consideration when they assess affordability, they are likely to base the maximum lending purely on your basic salary.”

A number of lenders offer mortgages at a maximum of 90% loan to value (only requiring a 10% deposit), but unless applicants have a perfect credit history they are apparently being rejected for the slightest misdemeanours.

Commenting on the issue, the director of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, Robert Sinclair, said that the government must reinvent mortgage indemnity guarantees emphasising on consumer benefit.

He claimed this would allow lenders to increase their capacity to offer loans and would therefore extend the availability of mortgages to people such as first-time buyers.

In April’s Budget, he said it is crucial that the government considers both supply and demand side in order to re-boot the mortgage market.”

This month, Steve Turner, the head of communications at the Home Builders Federation, said that the banks should be more confident to lend money to consumers in the form of mortgages.

Doing this would make it easier for people to get home loans and would improve the state of the UK’s property market dramatically.