Our Guide to Mortgages for Cabin Crew
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When you are trying to arrange a mortgage, your life can become very complicated by virtue of the nature of your employment coupled with the time that’s often required to go through the various application formalities.
However, that’s where we can assist with mortgages for cabin crew. We can help you to find an attractive and appropriate option, without the need for you to spend lots of your precious time doing so.
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Post Contents
Why are mortgages for cabin crew and airline staff often difficult to get?
How much deposit will I need for an airline crew mortgage?
How is airline income assessed by lenders?
What type of mortgage can I get as cabin crew staff?
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Why are mortgages for cabin crew and airline staff often difficult to get?
Can I get a mortgage while on maternity or parental leave?
It’s a fact of life that from time to time, flight and cabin crew can find it difficult to track down an attractive and entirely suitable mortgage. That is odd, given the size and growth potential forecasts for this industry.
There are a number of reasons why that’s the case, typically including:
- most mortgage applications, whatever career the applicant might have, are considered based on standard and verifiable regular income. This is used to help decide how much the applicant will be able to borrow in terms of the affordability of repayments arising. Mortgage lenders are obliged to consider such by the official industry regulator – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA);
- in the case of many mortgages for airline crew, the applicants’ income is derived from base salary plus a range of ancillary allowances – some of which may be variable. Some mortgage providers may find that difficult to incorporate into their calculations of the maximum amounts lendable;
- flight and cabin crew can occasionally experience difficulties in making mortgage providers understand the specifics of where they are based, their official place of domicile and the nature of their employment contract. For example, if you are spending significant amounts of your time posted overseas, that may complicate some types of application for UK mortgages due to the fact that you may be seen to have occupied multiple residential addresses during the recent past;
- to some extent, your credit history records also play a part in assessing your mortgage application. That can sometimes be made more complicated if you have spent a lot of time outside of the country and are not (e.g.) on the electoral register.
We have extensive experience of all these complications in terms of mortgage applications from cabin crew and related airline staff. More importantly, we also understand how it is possible to overcome them and to source mortgages that take into account these various complexities.
How much deposit will I need for an airline crew mortgage?
It is difficult to say specifically, in advance, just how much you will need by way of a deposit.
Different mortgage lenders offering mortgages for cabin crew may have very different policies in that respect. A number of factors play a part and the requirements might vary not only by lender but also by your own individual status as an applicant.
Your application is likely to be very favourably received by most lenders if you have somewhere around 10-15% as a deposit available from your own financial resources. However, in some cases, the mortgage provider may accept as little as 5%.
How is airline income assessed by lenders?
Once again, it is difficult to give a very precise statement relating to exactly how your unique position will be assessed by an individual mortgage provider.
The position can also be complicated by the fact that there are wide differences between airlines, as well as that although base salary levels might appear to be modest on average, they are typically supplemented by various allowances.
In general terms, you might typically see:
- your basic contracted regular and predictable salary will be taken into account to around 100% of its value. That factor is usually common to most or all mortgage providers;
- variations are more commonly seen when it comes to the subject of any allowances and bonuses you may receive as part of your conditions of employment. For example, if you receive an additional allowance for long-haul flights, some lenders may include 100% of your annual average income from that in their calculations. By contrast, others may only use 50% of that figure and you may even find some who will not include any of it at all.
We understand the various policies of mortgage providers in this respect and know of those who will consider 100% of your non-salaried income.
What type of mortgage can I get as cabin crew staff?
You will normally have access to what might be termed “standard mortgages” in today’s marketplace. In terms of airline crew mortgages, they include:
- normal residential mortgages – usually advanced for the purchase of what will become your primary place of domicile;
- buy-to-let mortgages – as the name suggests, these are designed for people who are seeking to use their property for the purposes of income generation. Once you do so, by definition you become a landlord;
- commercial mortgages – this type of lending is for properties that will be the basis of an enterprise or related commercial activity.
Please note that buy-to-let and commercial mortgages normally require you to be able to generate a typically larger deposit. That may be up to around 25% of the final property purchase price.
Next steps
At Needing Advice we understand very well just how complicated life can be for certain categories of people working within the aviation industry – including flight and cabin crew.
More importantly, we also understand how to secure attractive mortgage propositions for such professionals that take into account the sometimes less than straightforward nature of airline remuneration packages.
So, why not contact us for an initial and entirely non-committal discussion of your needs?
We are standing by waiting to help.
The Financial Conduct Authority do not regulate commercial mortgages.
Commercial mortgage are available by referral to a master broker only.
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