Avoid Mistakes: Best Mortgage Tips for Doctors and NHS staff

Who knows? Where is the mortgage market going? Is it up or down? Should I wait to buy or should I buy now? Last year I did lose a colleague who was roughly about my age, brilliant surgeon in London, got similar backgrounds and yeah, and it got me thinking about life insurance, income protection. These are things that most doctors don't even think about. It's very interesting you say that, Oliver, because I realize that a lot of my colleagues, doctors, dentists, NHS workers, they don't understand the difference between these things and sometimes it could actually lead to costing them several thousands of pounds. I do like a good deal and that's part of what you guys offer. You're able to assess the whole market. So what if I decided, well, I didn't just want to go to a mortgage advisor, I didn't want to speak to an extra human being. I just want to use my bank account and get a mortgage. What could happen? What could I be missing out.

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Yeah. So welcome back to Moneywise doctor. A platform for doctors and healthcare professionals to make smarter financial decisions and avoid costly financial mistakes. Well, today I've got something special. It's a little bit different than what we've been doing for the past few months. I've got a real financial professional, a real mortgage advisor, and he's also a financial advisor who is right in the midst of it. He deals with doctors and healthcare professionals and helps them to arrange mortgages and insurance and also helps with financial advice. So we've known for a while and I thought it was a good idea to bring him to share some of his insights. And from experiences he's seen, doctors are some of the commoner mistakes doctors make when it comes to these things. So I bring to you, Oliver Duck.

Good afternoon, thanks for having me on.

Welcome, Oliver. So Oliver is a business principal at Mortgage Advisory and they do all things mortgage. I've used Mortgage Advisory for quite a few years now for different properties, including different scenarios. And I can say they give top notch advice. And even right now I'm in the midst of remote getting two properties and I can tell you clearly now that they found me better mortgages than what I was able to get from my bank because I checked just to be sure. And you've dealt with several hundreds of doctors. So welcome.

Oliver, good afternoon, thanks for having me on.

Yes, tell us a bit about yourself, what you do and how you ended up here.

So, yeah, I'm Oliver Dack, Mortgage Advice Bureau. I've been with Mortgage advice bureau now 10 plus years and we're independent mortgage brokers that work with clients for residential and buy to let mortgages and help clients like yourselves to navigate the mortgage market, which is we could term it a bit of a minefield at times. And I think that's where we're here to try and help clients understand their options and make sure we're pointing you in the right direction.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Oliver has worked in the mortgage advisory for 10 years, so don't be misled by his handsome baby face.

I've been in the mortgage industry 20.

Plus years, so that's longer than I've been a doctor.

It's a little while and I've seen a lot of changes in that period of time, that's for sure.

I can imagine. Yeah. So basically you've been dealing with a lot of doctors and healthcare professionals and you've been giving them high quality advice and there seems to be a common trend. Obviously we know and that that's part of why we started money wise doctor was because doctors often don't end up making the smartest financial decisions. What the commonest mistakes you see when you see doctors who have come, let's say they want to get a mortgage or they want to take a life insurance, what are the commonest mistakes you've been seeing in that direction?

Look, I think we're genuinely here to help. So our advice to anybody would be to speak to a professional sooner rather than later. So do speak to the mortgage advice grower as soon as you possibly can. You guys and girls are particularly busy people and your lives are hectic. You work some crazy shifts out there. But fundamentally speaking to a mortgage broker, they are there to save you time and they're there to save you money and they're there to just take away as much of the hassle as possible. So the first point I would say is please just speak to a professional as soon as possible, get as much organized as possible and then make sure that all your everything is lined up so that it makes the process as seamless as possible going forwards.

So my mortgage broker probably think I'm letting them know a few months to my remote gauging rather than waiting to the last two weeks and then start running around.

Don't wait and don't be the clients that have had their offer accepted on their property this morning without speaking to a professional. So I'm pleased that they've done enough research themselves. But it could have been egg on face, that's for sure. But I think that's where the very first appointment with a mortgage broker don't be scared to reach out to them. Fundamentally, with a mortgage there's three key things that we're looking for and that's going to be exploring your deposit, exploring your income, exploring your credit history. With those three parts, with the 90 plus lenders that we've got available to us, we'll go away, do the research and hopefully come up with some answers for you which will mean that you potentially be able to borrow a lot more than you thought, it could be a lot less than you thought, but ultimately making sure that we're tailoring that product to you so that it's affordable for now and the longer term and will be suitable for.

Excellent. I'm glad you brought up that point because obviously at the beginning you introduce yourself as an independent mortgage advisor advisor a video on our YouTube channel that says don't go to a bank for, for your mortgage because without looking and you mentioned your independent mortgage advisor and you have access to 90 sort of product financial houses. Could you explain a bit more about that?

So we are independent from the mortgage companies themselves, we're independent from any estate agencies at all. So we act on, on yours, your, you as our clients, perhaps our role is to explore the market and as you say, we're legally allowed to say 90 plus lenders, 13,000 plus products. So to get a mortgage product there's three channels. It's either going to your bank direct and all they're going to offer you is their products. There is speaking to a mortgage broker who deals with a panel of lenders and a panel of lenders might be 20 odd lenders, it represents the marketplace, meaning that they can deem themselves as a broker or there's someone like ourselves who deals with 90 plus lenders and has access to the wider market. And there's so many differences between each bank that some clients, if they've spoken to a bank and they've been offered X solution, please don't just take that as that's the only option because there's so many more options out there.

It's very interesting you say that Oliver, because I realize that a lot of my colleagues, doctors, dentists, NHS workers, they don't understand the difference between these things and sometimes it could actually lead to costing them several thousands of pounds. When you look at the differences, I'll give you an example. For instance, I was about remote getting a property and then obviously my bank will reach out and then I reach out to them and they give me one rate and if I had just taken that as well, that's the rate then I would have been out several thousands of pounds. But just the chartered to mortgage advisors, independent mortgage advisors at your firm. And you're able to have a look and check the whole market and find me something more suitable. But, but I want to touch on something quite specific. Obviously your experience with working with doctors. You realize that doctors sort of income can be quite lumpy, can change and they might not be approved for some money because they think they're earning this amount of money, but they are going to actually earn more in the future. Have you seen such nuances or cases where average mortgage advisor, someone who didn't understand how doctors work, they felt like they weren't qualified for this, but it turned out not to be the case?

Oh for sure. And I think that's where we are specialists in that marketplace. We do understand the nuances within the income streams, that's for sure. And I think there's, there's lending multiples of four times income, which if you're doing your own tax returns as a locum doctor and X amount that could give you one result. But then there are lenders that will work with just your latest year's tax return at potentially a multiple of five and a half times income, which there's massive differences with the borrowing capacity with those. And that's just one example of just a locum doctor, for example. But naturally working within the sector that you're in, you get paid basic salaries, then there's overtime commissions on top of that. You mentioned dentistry. Sometimes they're partners within a business, they're possibly even just bought into a partnership within a business. And actually they possibly think that because they haven't been a partner for two plus years and got the accounts behind them, they possibly think they can't do something, whereas actually do speak to a broker, they will earmark what you can or can't do, they'll do the research that's needed. And a lot of the time there's always an option available to them. It's just ultimately what it boils down to is are the terms suitable and are the terms still affordable?

That is gold. Because basically a lot of people don't realize, I always think it's always good to talk to a broker even six months ahead of time because they can look at it and they can advise use it.