At Piccadilly Mortgages, we act as your mortgage advocate. We provide mortgage advice on a fair and personal analysis. This means that we provide services based on a sufficiently large number of banks and lenders in the market to enable us to make a recommendation, in accordance with professional criteria, regarding which mortgage would be the most suitable for you.
We listen to you and write your story in order to highlight your strengths when presenting you to the banks. As we work with multiple lenders in the Irish Mortgage Market, we will understand from speaking with you, which lender/lenders would be the most suitable for you, and what way to present your application to those lenders. The presentation of your application is key in order to highlight the strength of your profile and to ultimately meet (where possible) your mortgage expectations. The more information that you give us, the easier it is for us to be your advocate and for the banks to clearly understand who you are – leading to a smoother and swifter application process for you.
Before we formally submit your application, we speak to each bank that we work with on your behalf in order to see which banks could offer you the best terms based on your mortgage requirements. The best terms could be: the highest mortgage amount; the most competitive interest rate available from the banks willing to support you that we work with; or it may be that one bank may allow you to keep a loan where another bank may require that you clear the loan in full. Each bank has something different to offer which is why more and more people feel that working together with a professional mortgage consultant can offer them more options that just working with their own bank.
Once it is clear which bank/banks are the most suitable, we formally submit your application to the bank/banks. You will receive your mortgage approval back within c.1-4 weeks after that. Your mortgage approval is an A4 page on letter headed paper from the bank confirming what mortgage amount the bank will offer you. This is the document that you need in order place an offer on a property. This is referred to as an Approval in Principle (AIP), Agreement in Principle or an estate agent may ask you if you are “Mortgage Approved”, it all means the same thing – have you got the A4 page from the bank? Once you have your AIP, you can start the house hunting process. You won’t be taken seriously by the estate agents without your AIP.
If you already have mortgage approval, we can carry out a mortgage comparison for you in order to see if there is a more competitive offer out there for you. It is important to keep your options open, and it is your right as a mortgage consumer to see what other options are available in the market for you as opposed to just what your own bank is offering you. For most of us, buying your house is the biggest purchase you will ever make. Therefore, being fully informed of your mortgage choices is great place to start.