Catherine Pearce, Nurse
Neil Sheridan, Journalist
Catherine and Neil have been in living in separate shared houses, and for the past 6 months they've been looking at moving in together and buying their first home.
"We were both paying out money for rent and obviously we weren't seeing any return on it, so we both thought moving into our first home would be a great financial investment for our future. We really needed to get on the ladder!"
Although they've been doing research on the internet to look at property sizes and prices, they couldn't narrow their search because they needed to determine their budget.
"We knew the areas we liked but once we had a budget we were able to define the property and areas which we could afford. It's helped us to rule out a few places."
As Catherine has recently qualified as a nurse, her salary is at the bottom of the ladder. And although Neil's earnings are larger than Catherine's, they needed more borrowing power as multiplying their combined salaries by 3.5 was not enough for a house in their preferred area.
Here at Bank of Ireland Mortgages, we were able to offer Catherine and Neil 4 x their joint salary, so they can buy a property which suited their needs. With an initial discounted rate, their mortgage repayments are also lower to help them cope with all the initial outlay that comes with moving into their first home.
Please note that the above case study is purely fictitious and for illustrative purposes only.