Steps to buying your first home

Save for a mortgage:

You’ll need to build up a deposit of at least 5% of the price of the property you want to buy. However, it’s often worth saving more if you can bear to wait longer, as a bigger deposit usually means you will have access to mortgage deals with lower interest rates. 

• Read more in our Mortgages Explained section

Research:

For first time buyers, there are so many options available to help you buy your first home. There’s also lots to consider, such as Lifetime ISA’s, Help to Buy ISA’s, Help to Buy Equity Loan, Shared Ownership. 

• Read more in our Help to Buy Schemes section.

Research the area:

Once you know which area you want to live in, make sure you research the area and look into things that could affect your choice of house and also affect the type of home insurance available to you.

Once you have figured out your needs and you are house hunting, it’s time to get a mortgage agreement in principle. This is also known as a ‘decision in principle’ and is a statement from a lender saying that they are prepared to lend you a certain amount once you’ve found the property you wish to purchase.

• Read more in our Everything under one roof section to see how we can help you with this!

Now it’s time to get out there viewing some houses! It’s easy to spend lots and lots of time scrolling through endless lists of houses on Rightmove and Zoopla but it’s really important to view properties in person. It’s the best way to get a real feel for the place.

At Countrywide, we can help you make appointments so you can view properties in person also so that we can help find your perfect home.

• Read more on our services

We’ve done it! We’ve helped you find your perfect home!

So, what next?

Make an offer – with our advice and expertise, we can help you make a suitable offer for the house you want to buy. Whilst you wait to hear back on this, you should be looking to arrange a mortgage and considering the protection arrangements for your chosen house. Talk to our Mortgage and Protection Consultants so that we can help you find the right deal for you based on how much you can afford to pay each month.

• To understand more about mortgages, read our Mortgages explained section
• To find out about protection, read through our insurance page 
• At this stage, fees will be payable. To find out about various house purchase fees, read our Top Tips

Once you've arranged your mortgage, it's time to think about the legal side of things. A conveyancer will take charge of conducting searches, liaising with the seller’s conveyancer, inspecting the seller’s documents, dealing with the Land Registry and any other legal requirements you may have to help you to buy your home.

Countrywide Conveyancing Services happen to be one of the largest transactional conveyancing companies in the UK, so you know you’re in good hands. They have a large panel of law firms who can assist you with your purchase from start to end.

• Find out more in our Everything under one roof section

Your mortgage lender will need to conduct a simple survey of your selected property before they can offer you a mortgage to assess the risk of lending money against the property. It is not a full survey and is carried out by your chosen surveying team. Surveys can differ depending on what level of detail you want.

Countrywide Surveying Services is one of the UK’s largest RICS regulated residential surveyors and valuers.

• Read more about us here

Once the lender has issued a mortgage offer and your conveyancer has completed their work, you can exchange contracts. This is where you and the seller swap signed contracts drawn up by your legal representatives and are now legally bound to go ahead with the move.

You will also pay the deposit to your legal team to hold onto until completion.

Completion often takes place around 2 weeks after exchange however, this is flexible. On completion day, all monies will be transferred to the seller and you will receive the keys to move into your new home!

Congratulations – you’re officially a homeowner!