Are you a potential home buyer? Have you been scared to death by reports on the TV news and in the papers about the ‘Credit Crunch’? Or did you believe it was just a new biscuit or breakfast cereal? My view is that you should be concerned, but not paralysed with fear. Having read and listened to the same news reports I decided to conduct some research with our mortgage brokers, Bright mortgage advice. I asked them to tell me what percentage of the mortgages they arranged in 2006/2007 were for 125% of the purchase price. Answer : 2.5% I asked what percentage were 100%. Answer: 5% The balance were 95% mortgage or less. OK, I’ll admit that the Nationwide have announced that they’ll only offer 90% or less from May 2008 but this really isn’t the end of the world. Let’s assume that we have to use Nationwide and let’s also assume that we really wanted 95% mortgage on the average local first time buyer purchase price of £150,000. This means that 5% is £7,500; so we need to raise another £7,5