Crying game? Mortgages driving first time buyers to tears

It’s fair to say that applying for mortgages is few people’s idea of fun, but can the process ever drive them to tears?

It can, according to research among home owners by mortgage broker Trussle, which has discovered that 8% of all first-time buyers get teary-eyed while attempting to get their first mortgage, or 27,000 people every year.

The research also found that 9% of first time buyers had been discouraged during the process of buying their property because they had felt getting a mortgage was an ordeal, while nearly a quarter of first-time buyers are forced to time off work to sort out their mortgage application. This equates to 77,740 people last year.

Stressful

Also, 23% of the 2,000 people quizzed during the research said the experience of getting a mortgage was stressful, while many found making a mortgage application to be “opaque and time-consuming”.

This is also persuading many people to stay put with their existing lender rather than switch provider and remortgage, says Trussle.

It reckons there are two million people on Standard Variable Rate mortgages who could save thousands of pounds a year if they were to switch to a mortgage with a more competitive rate.

The lender reckons the average saving is £4,900 per borrower or £9.8 billion in total.

“The good news is that things are improving, if in pockets,” says Ishaan Malhi, CEO of Trussle (pictured, left).

“We’re already seeing dramatic progress in the mortgage customer experience, with the use of technology speeding up and simplifying the whole process. This in turn should help to address some of the causes of the inertia costing homeowners so much money.”