Home Buyers Guide

Chapter 5: Mortgage Basics

How much can I borrow?

There are lots of variables involved in calculating your approval amount (such as outgoings, loan commitments,
age, breakdown of your income into basic, overtime, bonuses etc), so I'd highly recommend that you get approval
in principle before you do anything else.

The factors that can effect what you’d be able to borrow include:

• Age

• Existing loans (A €400 per month car loan can reduce what you can borrow by over €65,000)

• Disposable income

• Credit history

• Occupation

• Employer

• Industry

• Employment contract status

• Savings patterns

• The deposit you have (and how you raised it)

• How many kids you have

• The mortgage term (i.e. how many years you’ll take the mortgage over)

• What type of interest rate you choose

Here's two things you shouldn’t overlook:

• Most lenders will only take 10 - 20% of overtime, bonus or commission into account when working out
what you can borrow, so if they make up part of your income, it's vital to speak to a mortgage professional.

• Some occupations are negatively weighted, such as construction jobs, as redundancy levels are
increasing – you will only find out your real position by speaking to a mortgage consultant.

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