Realising the dream home – The Mortgage Brain’s support of foster carers
Foster carers are in a unique financial situation. When trying to secure a mortgage, this can often lead to their income being questioned and result in difficulties. The Mortgage Brain, however, has addressed this issue and thanks to the in-depth fostering knowledge of their specialist advisers, they have helped hundreds of foster carers with their mortgage over the years. Read here about their service and why the team is so keen to help foster carers finance their dream home.
‘After our initial meeting with The Fostering Network to discuss how we could help foster carers a couple of years ago, I was really motivated,’ says Enzo Mora, founder of The Mortgage Brain – corporate partner of The Fostering Network. ‘Not only by the remarkable achievements of foster families across the UK, but the incredible work that the charity does to make this possible.’
Enzo started The Mortgage Brain in 2001 after having worked in the industry for over 13 years. Together with his 80-strong team he offers support to foster carers – whether they are a first-time buyer, moving home, looking to refinance their current property or just in need of accessing help from the government.
A helping hand
‘Foster carers often come to us after they have been told they can’t get a mortgage. On occasion they have paid money to a firm only to then be told they can’t get a mortgage. That won’t happen with The Mortgage Brain,’ guarantees Enzo.
Over the last few years the company have nurtured a special arrangement with all the UK’s big lenders to make sure foster carers, who are classed as self-employed and could have difficulties obtaining a mortgage, are looked after. ‘It’s a very specialist market and it’s easy to get wrong if you don’t have the experience of our teams.’
It’s a personal mission of mine and my team of advisors to talk to lenders to get them on board with what we do. That’s why we’ve brought on new lenders to our panel that are now also supporting foster carers. We’re always in discussion to grow this portfolio so there are more to choose from.’
A passion for fostering
Enzo and The Mortgage Brain have been supporting The Fostering Network’s work for more than four years now and throughout this time, Enzo got more and more invested in fostering.
‘Foster carers are incredible. It takes very special people to foster. And we at The Mortgage Brain are all in admiration of the incredible work foster carers are doing day in and day out.’
We know that foster carers often need more space at home so they are either borrowing more money to extend their current properties or they need a new mortgage to purchase a larger home. The fact that we’ve got lenders that will use all of the earnings that foster carers receive for affordability ensures that they can see through their plans. Although foster carers have to supply a little bit more information for their application, once we have it it’s a very quick, straightforward process,’ says Enzo.
A special deal for members
‘We are keen to make arranging a mortgage as stress-free as possible: members with The Fostering Network get a reduced arrangement fee of £150 and we only charge a fee if we’re successful, which we are in 99 per cent of foster carer applications.
‘We really enjoy working with a charity that is doing so much good work and it’s great to know that we can use our expertise to support foster carers. I hope that we can support many more in the future, so please get in touch.’
You can find out more about The Mortgage Brain and the membership discount here.
