Buying your first property can be quite a stressful and difficult experience, especially if you are not sure about how the whole process works.

The first thing you need to do is to sort out your mortgage.

When looking for your first mortgage, you need to be realistic how much you can afford to pay back each month in mortgage repayments. Then after doing that, you need to search the mortgage market. And let’s be honest there are large numbers of lenders who have mortgages designed especially for first time buyers. This is where getting impartial mortgage advice from an adviser can really help.  But you should make sure they are "whole of market"; don't just use the salesman based at your estate agents as he may not offer you the best advice.

The Welcome Home mortgage service can help by putting you in contact with FSA authorized impartial mortgage advisers who do represent the whole of market.

And just like every borrower, you need to decide what kind of mortgage you want e.g. a fixed rate mortgage, discount mortgage or offset mortgage.  In the past, lenders simply multiplied your income to calculate how much they would lend you. Normally a single person could borrow 3.5 x their single salary while a couple would be offered 2.5 x their joint salary. Recently, mortgage lenders have moved to using "affordability" criteria. This is where they consider your outgoings and your income to work out what you can afford in repayments.

Also some lenders are now willing to lend you higher amounts; some will lend you as a single person 4, 5 or even 6 x your annual salary.  Where possible, it makes sense for you as first time buyer to have a deposit of at least 5% of the purchase price. This demonstrates you have financial discipline and often results in you getting cheaper borrowing rates.

Some lenders impose a "Higher Lending Charge", which used to be called a "Mortgage Indemnity Guarantee", when you borrow more than 90% of the property value.  This 90% figure is known as the LTV (Loan to Value) ratio. Even where there isn't a specific charge, many lenders offer cheaper interest rates if your LTV is below 90%.  If you do borrow at a high LTV you should be looking for a lender who doesn't charge a higher lending charge; this will only add to your overall lending costs.

Based on what you can save, it could also be worth taking out a cheap unsecured loan in order to give you a deposit.  You could also opt for a 0% credit card (but used carefully). This is really a last resort and you need to be aware of what they entail ( 0% credit cards are often for less than 12 months.)