Lost in the Mortgage Maze? Picnic’s Here to Help!

Meet Sophie

Sophie, a 39-year-old Assistant Head teacher from London and mother of a 1-year-old baby, has been renting with her partner since 2010. Sophie has always been keen to own rather than rent, but, like so many of her generation, taking that first step onto the property ladder has been hampered by the need for a large cash deposit (particularly in London, where property prices remain on a continuous upward spiral). 

Undeterred, she managed to save up a healthy £80,000 and found a 3-bedroom mid-terrace house in Streatham, valued at £465,000, which was perfect for a young family. With an offer on the house accepted, Sophie approached a well-known high-street bank to arrange a mortgage. 

Things began well, but soon ground to a halt due to a ‘technical glitch’, and all communication with her bank suddenly became non-existent. After remaining patient for a month, Sophie discovered her application hadn’t even been submitted, and her bank still couldn't offer any clarity on what or why this ‘technical problem’ was holding up the process. 

Naturally, Sophie’s first instinct was to check her credit history to see if anything there was causing the bottleneck. When she logged on to her Experian account, not only did she discover her credit score was all good, but she also saw the opportunity to speak with Picnic and decided to leave her bank’s ‘technical issues’ in the rear view mirror. 

How Did We Help?

By the time Sophie had decided to give Picnic a try, it’s fair to say she’d become a little worried about her chances. Left rather baffled by how the process seemed to hit an invisible barrier with her bank, she now needed a mortgage team who could pick up the baton and run with it, and that’s exactly what she found. 

Within a week of signing up to our service, her Mortgage Advisor, Chloe, was able to pass on the good news that everything was sorted and her mortgage offer had been secured with Santander. Not only that, but Chloe also managed to arrange a 5-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.11% with £250 cashback, which was a slightly better deal than the one Sophie had previously agreed with her regular bank.  

What Sophie Says

“Picnic’s mortgage team were just so efficient, they made the whole process feel seamless. I was pretty anxious at first, after what happened before, but they made me feel so much more relaxed. I needed someone to just sort it out, and they did, within days! 

Switching from one expert to another, I never had to wait at all. They just got on with it, and their online portal is so easy to use. I paid £599 and, honestly, it was worth every penny.”