Your first mortgage. Without the panic.

Start here if nobody has explained any of this

Buying your first home is the largest purchase of your life so far, and the industry explains it in a language you have never been taught.

AIP. LTV. DIP. SDLT. Vendor. Searches. Exchange. Completion. All of it said quickly, by people who do it every day, to someone doing it once.

So, the short version. You save a deposit. A lender agrees in principle what it would lend you. You find a place and make an offer. The lender values the property and checks your paperwork properly. Solicitors do the legal bits. You exchange contracts, which is the point it becomes binding, and then you complete, which is the day you get the keys.

Everything else is detail. Important detail, and I will walk you through it, but that is the shape of it.

What you actually need

A deposit. Commonly five to ten per cent of the price to get started, though a larger deposit generally opens up more choice. Where it comes from matters as much as how much it is, and lenders will want to see the trail, particularly for a gift from family.

A steady income. Employed, self-employed or a mix. If you are self-employed, see the self-employed mortgages page, which covers how that is assessed.

A credit file that holds up. Not perfect. Nobody's is. But registered at your current address, with no recent missed payments.

Money for the other costs. Solicitor's fees, a survey, searches, moving. These are the ones that catch people out, because they arrive after you have already emptied your savings into the deposit.

Patience. Twelve to sixteen weeks is normal from offer accepted to keys. It will feel like nothing is happening for long stretches. Usually nothing is.

What lenders look at, in the order they look at it

1. Income. What you earn, how reliably, and how long you have earned it.

2. Outgoings and commitments. Car finance, loans, credit cards, childcare, and buy-now-pay-later, which counts whether or not you think of it as borrowing.

3. Deposit size, and where it came from.

4. Credit history. Payment record, address history, electoral roll.

5. The property itself. Lenders turn down properties, not just people. Flats above shops and unusual construction can narrow the field considerably.

Worth knowing that point five exists. People assume a decline is about them, and sometimes the lender simply did not like the building.

The three months before you apply

If you do nothing else on this page, do this. Lenders look at your recent bank statements, and recent means the last three to six months.

• Stay out of your overdraft. It is read as living beyond your means, fairly or not.
• Pause the gambling apps. Even small, regular amounts. It is one of the first things flagged.
• Pay everything on time, especially phone and credit card minimums.
• Avoid new credit. A car on finance two months before applying can reduce what you can borrow by more than the car cost.
• Keep the deposit still. Money shuffled between accounts creates questions nobody enjoys answering.

None of this is about being judged. It is about a stranger reading three months of your life and forming a view in ten minutes.

Gifted deposits, and the awkward conversation

Plenty of first-time buyers get help from family, and lenders are entirely used to it.

What they want is clarity. Usually a short letter from whoever gives the money confirming it is a gift rather than a loan, that they have no claim on the property, and where the money came from. If a parent is remortgaging or dipping into savings to help, the lender will want that trail too.

The thing that causes problems is a "loan" everyone calls a gift. It affects what you can borrow, and sorting it out properly at the start is far easier than unpicking it a week before exchange.

Buying with someone else

Joint applications are assessed on both of you, which means both incomes and both credit files. One person's missed payments affect the pair of you.

Buying with a friend or a sibling is possible and worth thinking about properly, including how ownership is held and what happens if one of you wants out. Your solicitor should walk you through the options.

One of you is self-employed. Perfectly normal, it just means two sets of paperwork.

And since nobody enjoys raising it: if you are buying with a partner, it is worth a conversation about what happens to the mortgage if one of you dies or cannot work. Cover is not an upsell, it is the thing that keeps the survivor in the house. There is more on the life and critical illness page.

Mistakes I watch first-time buyers make

Falling in love before getting a decision in principle. Offering on a place without knowing your number wastes everyone's time, yours most of all.

Taking the estate agent's recommended broker at face value. They may be perfectly good. Just remember whose side that introduction serves.

Forgetting the costs that are not the deposit. Solicitor, survey, searches, stamp duty if it applies to you, moving. Budget for them separately.

Assuming the valuation is a survey. It is not. A valuation tells the lender the place is worth lending against. A survey tells you what is wrong with it.

Panicking at week six. There is always a stretch where nothing happens. It is normal. Ring me rather than refreshing your email.

Not ready yet? That is useful information

If you are a year or two away, that is a good place to be standing, because it is the point where small changes make a real difference.

The Mortgage Ready questionnaire gives you a score out of 100 across income, deposit, credit, money habits and paperwork, plus the two things worth fixing first. Ten questions, about three minutes, no credit check and no mark on your file.

Then come and talk to me when you are closer. I would far rather have a fifteen-minute conversation with someone who is twelve months away than meet them after a declined application.