FreelancerMortgage.guide is an independent resource for self-employed workers, freelancers, and contractors navigating the mortgage process. It has no affiliation with any lender, broker, or financial institution.
Search for "freelancer mortgage" and you'll find pages of results — helpful-sounding guides, explainers, calculators, checklists. Almost all of them are written by mortgage lenders or brokers. Almost all of them end with a contact form, a rate quote button, or a call to action to speak with their loan officers.
There is nothing wrong with that. Lenders need to market their services. But it means the information available to freelancers trying to understand their situation is filtered through a commercial lens. The goal of the person writing is to get you to apply — not necessarily to tell you whether you should.
This site exists to fill that gap. An honest, independent assessment of what lenders actually look for, what makes self-employed applications harder, and what you can genuinely do to improve your position.
Freelancermortgage.guide is written and maintained by Terry McDonnell.
A chartered accountant by training, he spent the early part of his career managing several manufacturing companies before moving into food. Over the years that followed he built, ran and sold seven fast food franchises, and most recently owned and operated a restaurant for nine years — selling it recently, at a healthy capital profit.
That combination is the reason this site takes the shape it does. The accounting background is why every figure here is tied back to what a lender can actually verify, rather than gut feel or optimistic projections. Two decades of being self-employed himself — the franchises, then nine years running a restaurant — is why the readiness assessment asks for the numbers a freelancer can actually lay their hands on today: bank statements, invoices sent, what's actually landed in the account, instead of the tidy annual figure an accountant assembles months later.
You can reach us at hello@freelancermortgage.guide. We read everything, including the corrections.
The articles on this site are written to be as accurate and useful as possible, but they are not financial or legal advice. Mortgage lending rules vary by country, lender, and individual circumstance. Always verify information with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
The readiness assessment produces a verdict based on the factors you provide. It cannot account for every lender's specific criteria, and its verdict should be treated as a starting point for thinking, not a guarantee of any outcome.
9 questions. An honest verdict. No data collected.