While Britain has enjoyed a sustained period of economic growth in recent times, there are concerns that the current generation of mortgage holders could face difficulties in the next few years.  More specifically, nearly one million home-owners have no discernible way of paying off their mortgages, primarily because they have opted for interest-only loans and finance packages.  This is according to the Citizens Advice Bureau, whose estimate is far higher than that of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

How to Secure a Viable Mortgage in 2015

With this in mind, it is crucial that you take practical steps towards identifying a viable and easily repayable mortgage. Consider the following ideas:

 1.  Assess

When looking for a mortgage, whether that is for your home or business, your first step is to assess how attractive you are going to be to mortgage lenders and try to improve this.  You can do this by taking an honest look at your finances and credit report and weighing your pros against your cons.  For instance, you may have been in your current job for a number of years but there may be one or two blips on your record.  You should then try to minimise the negative impact of the negatives by, for instance, clarifying and having removed, if possible, any issues that may appear on your report and ensuring that your current address is shown.

New House! by Nat Tung, on Flickr.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License.

Similarly in relation to a business mortgage you will want to keep your accounts up to date and in order.  At this stage you should now be in a position to know whether you will need a bad credit mortgage, a first time buyer mortgage or perhaps that you are in an excellent position and are able to narrow your search to the best rates that are available on those kinds of mortgages.

2.  Look Beyond Price Comparison Sites

Although price comparison sites offer an excellent way of obtaining a broad overview of the mortgage market, it is important that you delve deeper into these figures.  There may be much more to what appears to be the best offer than at first appears as there could be many costs which are at first not visible.  As Which points out, these may include additional interest or early repayment charges which could soon bump up the amount that you are repaying.

3.  Get Advice

Given that a mortgage is a huge commitment in terms of both money and time it is advisable to get some good advice.  The difficulty with this is that good advice is not only hard to come by but also may be hard to recognise.  After all, once you have expressed an interest in getting a mortgage, it is likely that everywhere you go, from your bank to the high street; there will be somebody willing to provide you with advice.  By identifying viable, independent and accredited service providers such as Openwork and the Citizens Advice Bureau, you can accumulate a broad bank of data and utilise this accordingly.