Buying your first home is one of the most important life milestones you’ll ever encounter – and, in equal parts, a thrilling lunge into a new world of secure independence, and a deeply terrifying financial obligation. It is no secret that getting onto the property ladder is hard, and has only gotten harder; if you’re reading this, though, you may feel you’re finally in a position to take the leap.

In reading this, you’ll find out how to start going about buying your first home. It’s not the easiest road to walk, and especially not as someone with no prior experience buying property; that said, with a little research, you’ll soon be well-equipped with the knowledge necessary to proceed.

Assessing Finances and Affordability

Let’s start, then, with the first crucial step: addressing your financial situation and figuring out the affordability of a first home. A lot of information goes into figuring out whether or not you can afford a home, but the starting point for you is invariably your income and outgoings. If you’re in a partnership, you’ll want this information both separately and jointly.

Affordability isn’t just “do I have enough for a mortgage deposit?”. You also need to satisfy mortgage lenders’ concerns about ongoing ability to make mortgage payments. As an extremely broad rule of thumb, a property is affordable to you if its sale value does not exceed 4.5 times your salary (collectively, if buying with a partner); some mortgages offer higher ratios than this, and the more you earn, the more likely a mortgage lender is to offer you a higher ratio.

Understanding Mortgages

The word ‘mortgage’ has appeared a few times now, and deserves some fleshing out as a concept. A mortgage is, effectively, a bank loan with which you purchase your home; in order to access a mortgage, you need a deposit large enough to satisfy the lender, earnings enough to satisfy the lender as to the affordability of the home, and a credit score to satisfy the lender as to your level of non-repayment risk besides.

To get a good mortgage, it is often worth using a mortgage broker. The associated costs are minimal, and the broker receives much of its recompense from the lender. In return, you get advice and guidance on following the mortgage process.

Choosing the Right Type of Property

With all this in mind, you should have enough information to know what price range you can afford to look in with respect to your first home – leaving personal factors to take into consideration. Location is of key importance, but so too are considerations like energy efficiency, available space and opportunity for extension. If you won’t have the budget to effect a major renovation of an older house, you may want to look at new build homes that don’t come with the same deterioratory risks.

Hidden Costs

Before you proceed with a mortgage offer, make sure you know exactly what you’re signing up for. There are ‘hidden’ costs throughout the buying process, from conveyancing fees to reports, broker fees and Land Registry application fees. Make sure you have a 10% contingency in your budget!