Given what’s happening in the market right now this is quite a common first question when we receive a new enquiry.

Mortgages are still available despite what might be written in the press, it’s all about securing the best type for your individual circumstances.

A conventional mortgage is where you combine your deposit to whatever your income dictates you can borrow, to establish at what level you can buy at.

Personal income is the key in these cases:

This is not necessarily the case as the in this scenario the higher the deposit the lower the rate is likely to be rather than increased borrowing.

Other factors that dictate how much can be borrowed are credit score/history, age, dependents and a host of individual lender criteria.

When securing a conventional mortgage, there are typically two types of rate available, fixed and variable.


The beauty of a capped rate is that the cap is the highest the rate can reach, but if rates start to reduce then the mortgage payments could also come down.

This would be a great feature right now:


Again this could be a relevant product again now.

If a conventional mortgage is unavailable then there is the option of shared ownership which we’ve covered before.

This is often referred to as a part buy part rent scheme.

Usually the property is purchased from a housing association and if buying a property via a conventional mortgage is just out of reach, this product allows people to start off by buying as little as 25% of a property’s value and pay rent on the rest.

The scheme normally allows you to gradually increase the percentage you own and this is called staircasing.

Other schemes could be introduced in future by lenders as we’ve lost the Help to Buy scheme which was immensely popular.

For any type of mortgage requirement, please contact Compass Mortgages as we are only too happy to give you as much information as possible to help you on that first rung of the property ladder.

Call one of our friendly advisers on 01903 815444.