Sports Professionals
At West End Mortgages we have extensive experience in assisting sports professionals.
We understand the challenges that sports professionals face when trying to arrange a mortgage compared to borrowers with more conventional jobs.
Despite professional athletes potentially being high net worth borrowers, banks look to minimise risk as far as possible and are often extremely cautious before offering a mortgage.
There are various reasons for this:
Most sports professionals are employed on short term contracts, e.g. with a specific club
The likelihood of suffering a serious injury is higher which could have the potential to cut short a career
The ‘retirement age’ for many sports professional may be early to mid 30’s.
Your income could be a combination of:
Fixed term contracts
Bonuses
Sponsorship
Appearance fees (personal, club and international)
Some lenders may also only offer the mortgage over a reduced term. We work with a number of lenders who can lend well past the age of 35 if we provide detailed information on the career path that will be taken when the professional sports work ends. This could be detail on any relevant training being completed and/or further education e.g. a University degree for your chosen profession after the sporting career ends.
Our mortgage specialist at West End Mortgages has extensive experience assisting sports professionals with purchasing and remortgaging properties throughout the UK and will assist in preparing a robust business case on your behalf to support your application. This will ensure that you can borrow what you need to, over the desired term to suit your individual circumstances.
It makes good financial sense to regularly review your mortgage to make sure that it is still the best option for your circumstances. This helps in ensuring that the mortgage can be moved to another property if e.g. you were to move to another club elsewhere in the UK.
If you have recently signed a new contract with better terms, we can access lenders who will base the mortgage assessment on the new contract (if it is due to start within 6 months from the date of your mortgage application). This increased borrowing power means that you can potentially buy the property that you really want much sooner.
We can also assist you with overpayment strategies to pay down your mortgage when your earnings are at their highest.
If you are considering buying property as part of an investment plan or even buying a second home, we can also assist you with this.
If you have moved to the UK from overseas to play your sport professionally, it can be more challenging to obtain a mortgage, but you still have options. Please speak to our mortgage specialist about the options available to you.
It is absolutely crucial to make sure you have the right mortgage in place when you transition from professional sports to another career. We would always advise you to plan ahead and do this as early as possible. Your mortgage may need to be restructured to ensure that it remains affordable if your income was to reduce.
West End Mortgages have access to high street banks, private banks and also specialist lenders and we work with lenders from the whole of the market to make sure that you get the best mortgage deal available to you.