Cardiff data study

The Cardiff Lender Lottery

We put six real Cardiff buyer profiles through the full residential panel of the MortgageAffordability engine — same income, same day, every lender. What each one comes back with is nowhere near the same number.

The widest gap we found

£254,000

Between the lowest and highest lender maximum for our day-rate contractor, £400/day — £297,000 at one end, £551,000 at the other, 86% apart, for the exact same income.

Every figure below is the maximumloan that lender's own affordability model would support for this buyer's income and outgoings — not a quote, a decision in principle, or a promise anyone will lend. Some of those maximums run well past what the buyer actually needs to borrow; the dark marker on each bar shows exactly where their needed loan sits against the panel.

Narrowest spread in cash terms

43 of 51 lenders reach her needed loan

8 fall short of the £145,800 she needs to buy this flat.

Band 5 nurse, first-time buyer, £162,000 Cardiff flat

Property: £162,000
Deposit: £16,200
Needed loan: £145,800

Lowest offer: £114,000
Median: £154,000
Highest offer: £190,500

Spread: £76,500 (67%) across 51 lenders returning a usable figure. 43 of 51 reach the needed loan; 2 returned no usable quote for this profile.

Couple on typical Cardiff wages, £273,000 average home

Property: £273,000
Deposit: £27,300
Needed loan: £245,700

Lowest offer: £212,500
Median: £287,500
Highest offer: £384,000

Spread: £171,500 (81%) across 51 lenders returning a usable figure. 46 of 51 reach the needed loan; 3 returned no usable quote for this profile.

Lowest affordability rate on the panel

Self-employed designer, 2 years' accounts, £280,000 Pontcanna terrace

Property: £280,000
Deposit: £56,000
Needed loan: £224,000

Lowest offer: £163,500
Median: £216,000
Highest offer: £287,000

Spread: £123,500 (76%) across 52 lenders returning a usable figure. 21 of 52 reach the needed loan; 2 returned no usable quote for this profile.

NHS Band 6 + teacher, £325,000 Whitchurch semi

Property: £325,000
Deposit: £32,500
Needed loan: £292,500

Lowest offer: £269,500
Median: £357,500
Highest offer: £476,500

Spread: £207,000 (77%) across 52 lenders returning a usable figure. 50 of 52 reach the needed loan; 2 returned no usable quote for this profile.

Widest spread in cash terms

Day-rate contractor, £400/day, £220,000 Cardiff Bay flat

Property: £220,000
Deposit: £33,000
Needed loan: £187,000

Lowest offer: £297,000
Median: £460,000
Highest offer: £551,000

Spread: £254,000 (86%) across 43 lenders returning a usable figure. Every one of the 43 lenders' comparable figures covers the needed loan; 3 returned no usable quote for this profile.

Widest spread by proportion · most declines

Second-stepper family, £450,000 Lisvane detached

Property: £450,000
Deposit: £135,000
Needed loan: £315,000

Lowest offer: £218,500
Median: £360,000
Highest offer: £432,000

Spread: £213,500 (98%) across 50 lenders returning a usable figure. 45 of 50 reach the needed loan; 5 returned no usable quote for this profile.

Each bar: the shaded gold band spans the lowest to highest lender maximum for that buyer; the thin gold line marks the median; the dark green line marks the loan they actually need.

What the six spreads show

Self-employed designer, 2 years' accounts has the weakest affordability rate of the six: only 21 of 52 lenders (40%) reach the £224,000 needed loan — against 100% for Day-rate contractor, £400/day, the strongest result on the panel.
Day-rate contractor, £400/day produced the widest spread in cash terms: £254,000 between £297,000 and £551,000 — the same day rate, read completely differently depending which lender you ask.
Second-stepper family, Lisvane had the widest spread proportionally: 98% between its lowest and highest offer, and the most declines of any profile (5 lenders returning no usable quote).
Band 5 nurse, first-time buyer had the narrowest spread in cash terms (£76,500) — but it's still borderline: 8 of the 51 lenders fall short of the £145,800 needed to buy the flat.

Methodology

Every figure on this page came from a single run of the full residential panel of the MortgageAffordability engine, on 23 July 2026— the same real calculation engine that powers our free affordability check, not a manual estimate, a survey, or a broker's guess.

Each number is the maximum loan that individual lender's affordability model would support for that buyer's income and outgoings. It is not a mortgage offer, a decision in principle, or a guarantee any lender will lend — and some maximums run above what the buyer actually needs to borrow, which is why every chart marks the needed loan separately.

Lender identities are stripped throughout: each persona's results are anonymised and independently shuffled, and every loan figure is rounded to the nearest £500 before publication, so no individual lender can be identified from an exact number.

Per persona, a further 4–12 lenders returned a usable figure that was excluded before publication — either implausibly low against this buyer's income, a duplicate "echo" adapter that repeats the requested loan rather than calculating one, or a residual-income specialist calculator with no LTI cap that isn't comparable to the mainstream panel.

Lending criteria reflected here are as at July 2026. Lenders change criteria constantly, so treat this as a dated snapshot rather than a live comparison.

Citing this data

Journalists, researchers and other advisers are welcome to cite these figures — please attribute Capital Mortgage Advice and link back to this page. Get in touch via our subscribe form below if you'd like the full underlying methodology.

Read the Cardiff guides behind these numbers

What salary do you need to buy a house in Cardiff?

How much income you need to buy in Cardiff, by property type — verified average prices, deposit scenarios, and the income multiple lenders typically apply.

Self-employed mortgages in Cardiff: sole traders, directors and contractors

How mortgage lenders read accounts and SA302s for self-employed Cardiff buyers — sole traders, limited company directors and contractors — and what to prepare.

Mortgages for NHS and public sector workers in Cardiff

How lenders treat NHS Wales pay bands, overtime and shift pay for Cardiff's NHS and public sector workforce — no special scheme, just how income is assessed.

Mortgages on Cardiff Bay leasehold flats: what lenders look for

Mortgages on Cardiff Bay leasehold flats — service charges, ground rent, lease length, cladding/EWS1 checks and the Welsh Building Safety Fund explained.

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This page is a data study, not financial advice: it doesn't recommend a lender, and nothing on it is a mortgage offer, a decision in principle, or a guarantee any lender will lend to you. Data run 23 July 2026.