Online provider Mojo Mortgages has revealed Stockport has the second best mortgage scores in the UK and is therefore more ‘mortgage ready’ after analysing 4,000 home buyers across the UK.
Stockport came out as second in Mojo’s list, scoring 684 out of 1,000, making it the second most ‘mortgage ready’ town in the UK.
Mojo’s study analysed the ‘mortgage-readiness’ of 4,000 homebuyers across the UK and found that those who live in Nottingham are the most mortgage ready, whilst those who live in Wolverhampton have some work to do.
Mojo Mortgages is gearing up for the launch of a market-first service called MortgageScore™ in January. The service uses open banking data to help buyers understand their eligibility for a mortgage and helps them get mortgage ready by providing personalised coaching.
A customer’s score is calculated out of a thousand, and those who score 400-500 are deemed as ‘mortgage ready’, although, they may have to go down a specialist lending route as they are towards the bottom of the scale.
Those who score over 501 will be able to access a wider range of lenders, while those who have a score of 399 or below will be offered tailored coaching via the service’s MortgageCoach™ to help them increase their scores. The ideal score for someone looking to buy is 600 or above.
Mojo created MortgageScore™ following insight from UK-wide data which showed 51% of 25-34 year olds stated that homeownership is their top life goal. However, stats showed that 70% of would-be first-time buyers believed the dream of owning a home was already over, so wanted to create a solution for them to show what they needed to do to get on the property ladder, and that it was actually possible.
The below details the areas that have the best scores, as well as those areas that need improving (scores below are from best to worst):
Town/City | Mortgage Score (out of 1,000) |
Nottingham | 694 |
Stockport | 684 |
Basildon | 669 |
Cambridge | 655 |
Ilford | 644 |
Leicester | 629 |
Derby | 624 |
Milton Keynes | 621 |
Southampton | 613 |
Liverpool | 611 |
Reading | 611 |
Northwich | 605 |
Hull | 600 |
Bolton | 595 |
Manchester | 591 |
Stoke-on-Trent | 590 |
Edinburgh | 588 |
Leeds | 586 |
Glasgow | 585 |
London | 581 |
Macclesfield | 580 |
Bradford | 580 |
York | 576 |
Coventry | 572 |
Peterborough | 570 |
Sheffield | 568 |
Luton | 562 |
Birmingham | 562 |
Bristol | 545 |
Wolverhampton | 514 |
While credit scores are usually the starting point of a mortgage journey, data from the online broker found that having a bad credit score has no correlation to whether you are actually mortgage ready.
In Mojo’s MortgageScore™ model, even if you don’t have a great credit score, you might still be mortgage ready, and unlike credit scores, MortgageScore™ is transparent and will let customers know why and where they need to improve to get on the ladder.
Richard Hayes, CEO and Co-Founder of Mojo Mortgages, said:
“At Mojo, we’re on a mission to make the mortgage experience better for everyone. That includes being more transparent, and empowering people with information to make the mortgage experience easier. People can sign-up to MortgageScore™ now ahead of its January launch to ensure they are first to access the service.
“From our own research, we found that 40% of people who used our service wanted to get a clear indication of how much they could afford to borrow. While a staggering 82% of our customers didn’t know whether they had a good enough credit score to get a mortgage. By launching this new service, customers won’t be left in the dark when it comes to what they need to do to get mortgage ready.”