22 November 2019

Teaching supply and demand

Teaching demands a certain kind of person and they say it’s a vocation not a job. It also demands a degree of flexibility, and in turn can result in a flexible and varied income, particularly if the teacher is on a fixed term or temporary contract, or working in a supply role. That’s why providing a service for your clients who are teachers demands a flexible mortgage lender.

Teaching is generally a secure profession with a guaranteed income, but your clients on temporary teaching contracts can find it difficult to secure a mortgage. Added to this, is the complication that some teachers are forced to live in areas where housing costs are higher so they can be in easy travelling distance of their school. 

Giving teachers the value they deserve

At Principality, we recognise the value of teachers by taking a flexible and common sense approach to our underwriting. We assess each teacher’s case on its own merits which means we won’t penalise fixed term or temporary contracts, as long as there is a history of employment, or at least 6 months left on an existing 12 month contract respectively. We’ll accept first time contracts too! 

And as far as newly qualified teachers (NQTs) are concerned, they’re no different. We’ll look at each and every one individually and make a decision based on what they have to offer rather than making a decision, like some mortgage providers, on a ‘one size fits all’ set of underwriting criteria. 

It may be that you have an NQT starting out on their first year’s contract, with the potential to be renewed for 3 years until a permanent position can be offered, or that you’ve a highly experienced teacher who’s just moved area so has taken a fixed or temporary contract until a permanent position becomes available.

Helping an NQT at the start of her teaching career

Our broker’s customer Emma was a first time buyer. She’d just started her teacher career and had only been working in this, her first teaching post, for 3 months. As an NQT in her first academic year, Emma was struggling to find the right mortgage for her. 

We were happy to accept an application from Emma, having seen 3 months full payslips and a copy of her 12 month NQT contract, with more than 6 months remaining at the time of her application. Emma was delighted when we offered her up to 95% LTV.

Proving supply is sustainable

As a supply teacher, it may be easy to find a constant stream of work but actually proving a sustainable income, on sometimes very irregular working patterns, can be difficult. We take a pragmatic approach at Principality which means we will consider applicants who are supply teachers with just 6 months proof of income. And we’ll take an average across this 6 months and pro rata it up to work out their annual affordability. 

To find out more about our products, please visit www.principality.co.uk/intermediaries
Or to contact our dedicated Intermediary team please call 0330 333 4021*, email intermediary@principality.co.uk or look us up on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/showcase/principality-intermedaries


Loans subject to affordability and mortgage lending criteria.

* To help us maintain our service and security standards telephone calls may be monitored or recorded. 

Published: 22/11/2019