Do you want to hit a home run with your Mortgage application? Here are 8 actions you can take that will help.

1 – Clean Bank Statements

In any mortgage application an applicant must provide at least 3 months worth of bank statements. These statements must be clean. Try and reduce the amount of dodgy places you visit over this period. If you regularly visit the Casino, don’t use your Cards there, visit an ATM before you go, do you go to the pub every night? Visit the ATM once a week for your spending money.

2- Pool your finances

If you are borrowing as a couple, pool your finances. You will be surprised at the immediate savings you make. Have your salaries paid into the one account, and pay all your joint bills out of this. You should have your own miscellaneous spending accounts, each pay period you should transfer funds to your own account to keep you sanity in check.

3- Eliminate consumer debt

Got a hire purchase for that TV? Got a Car loan? Get rid of it all. Lenders look at consumer debt from two angles. Consumer debt really impacts on your servicing ability, this in turn impacts on the amount of lending you can acquire. Lenders also see consumer debt as a sign that you live outside your means, impacting on their character assessment of your application.

4- Cancel your Overdraft

Enough said.

5- Don’t go overdrawn

Don’t go into un-arranged Overdraft. As well as attracting unnecessary fees this indicates that you aren’t able to manage your finances prudently. The number 1 reason I find that clients dip into un-arranged overdraft is that they have their salary paid into one account and they spend out of another account, and they don’t get around to transferring money in time.

6- Pay off your Credit Card each month

This shows a lender that you use Credit Cards wisely.

7- Regularly save

Have an automatic payment into a savings account every pay period. This regular amount will show a lender that you are able to forgo part of your salary each period, this will provide comfort around meeting your mortgage payments in the future,

8- Show that you have stick-ability in your job.

Wait until you have held your job for at least 6 months. Most Gen Y’s skip between jobs pretty regularly, wait until you have held your current job for at least 6 months, even though it is a reasonably short amount of time it does remove some doubt about your employment stability in the lenders eyes.