What You Need To Know About Buying Your First Home

Last Updated on: 2nd September 2026, 08:10 am

Buying Your First Home

When you start the process of buying your first home, it is so exciting. Whether you are 20, 35 or 40, you suddenly feel like a real grown up. You have worked so hard for this and now you are ready for the biggest adventure of your life yet. But there is so much to know when you are buying your first home and we are here to help you.

What Types Of Home Can I Buy?

That is totally up to you. There are so many ways to buy a home these days. First you need to decide if you want a house, flat, bungalow or even a mobile or small home. The only thing that will stop you is your budget. If you want a house and you can afford it, then go for that as your dream home. If a small home or mobile home on a holiday park, is all you can afford, then thats okay too because it is your home.

You can also look at buying your council house if you get a hefty discount. If you are looking to buy your own home, but really can’t afford too much, you can look at a shared ownership property. You buy as much as you can afford, and pay rent on the other percentage. So if you own 55% of your home, you will pay ground rent on the other 45%. Although this is supposed to be more affordable than buying a full priced house, in reality it only works if you buy you share outright and don’t worry about a mortgage.

You also have the choice of an older house or buing a new build to live in. More younger people buy new builds than older people. This is because they are more modern than an older house.

How Much Can I Afford?

A mortgage company will normally lend you 4 times your annual salary, so if your new home is £110,000, and you earn £25,000 a year. You need to put £10,000 down as a deposit and take a £100,000 mortgage. Where as if you have a £40,000 yearly salary and a £25,000 deposit, you can buy a house for £185,000. These calculations are based on one person in the household, earning a wage. But a combined salary with two people in the house of £50,000 will get you a £200,000 mortgage.

It is not just the mortgage that you need to think about when it comes to affording a home. When you have your home, you need to think about all of your other outgoings that you have. You have water, electricity, gas bills to think about as well as your food and clothing money that you need to live on.

You need to think about insurance for your house too. There is buildings insurance, that will help you to cover cost of repairs to the building, like if your roof caves in. Then there is contents insurance, this covers the things inside your property, like if you smash your tv. You need to make sure that you buy the correct house insurance, whether it is one where you also run a business from home or you are looking for the best home insurance for new builds. Insurance is so important for your home.

What Is A Chain?

A chain is exactly as it seems. Although if you are a first time buyer, you do not have a chain behind you, so it should make buying the home a lot easier. Normally someone is selling a house, because they need to move somewhere different. Then they are buying off another buyer, who is waiting for the sale of their house to go through. So the chain can go on forever. Occaisionally, you will be a first time buyer, who buys a home from someone who is not looking to buy a new house. So this means there is no chain involved and your sale will go through so much faster.

Occaisionally the chain will break when someone drops out of a sale, this will hold things up slightly, but you will soon get back on track.