It’s fair to say that being a social media influencer can bring you fame and fortune. TikTok’s highest paid stars collectively hauled in $55.5m in 2021, according to Forbes. 17-year-old TikToker, Charli D’Amelio, earned a sizeable $17.5m alone, while her older sister, Dixie, brought in $10m.
Though significant, income can often be sporadic. And when coupled with the fact that the influencer market is still in its infancy, it can make borrowing to fund a dream house difficult, says Mark Steinle, an Associate at Knight Frank Finance.
It’s a challenge that’s prompting an increasing number of influencers to reach out for specialist mortgage advice.
Mark recently helped a UK-based social media star purchase a new home.
“The client had been an influencer full-time for the first few years of them starting out and was making about £1m a year,” says Mark. “Recently, they had decided to go part-time but were still earning about £500,000 from existing contracts.”
They owned their existing property outright and wanted to significantly upsize after finding a property on the market for £6m, explains Mark. This meant, however, that they needed to borrow around £3.5m, which presented them with a problem.
“On a salary of £500,000 and in an industry that’s got no real history, you can imagine how this made a lot of banks nervous given that most of them will only lend up to five times your income as a maximum.
“Even if they were comfortable with the industry, the dip in the client’s income to £500,000 from £1m in the year prior would have ordinarily restricted the amount they could borrow.”
Despite this, Mark was able to use his network of contacts to find a creative bank that was willing to offer a mortgage based on their income and expenditure, rather than limiting it to multiples of income.
He says, “The bank was willing to look at the overall holistic picture of the client’s outgoings and gross income. We then sat down with the lender to help them get a better understanding of the industry before they presented a credit paper to their committee.”
Though successful, Mark says the pool of lenders willing to make such a decision was incredibly slim. He urges influencers or anyone in a similar financial situation, who are considering a house purchase in the near future, to reach out to Knight Frank Finance, whose industry relationships were so critical in this scenario.
If you would like to discuss your mortgage options, please do contact our expert team who would be delighted to help. We have access to all the major lenders in the market, and can help find the most cost-effective and suitable mortgage for you.