Everything a UK first-time buyer needs, from working out the real deposit to the first night in: mortgages, schemes and boosts, viewings, offers, surveys, conveyancing and completion day. 18 chapters, free.
Buying your first home is the biggest purchase of your life, run through a process nobody teaches you, in vocabulary nobody explains. This guide fixes that.
It runs to 18 chapters and about 23,000 words, written for England and Wales with proper notes for Scotland and Northern Ireland and everything in it was checked in August 2026.
Who it is for
UK first-time buyers at any stage: still saving, mortgage-ready, or already offering. It assumes no knowledge and translates everything as it goes. There are extra chapters for the purchases that need more care: new builds, shared ownership, leasehold flats, auctions and buying with somebody else.
What is inside
- Can you actually buy? The deposit honestly, what buying costs beyond it, renting versus buying in 2026 and whether you are ready.
- Getting mortgage-ready. What lenders want to see in the six months before you apply, how much you can borrow and why a broker earns their keep.
- Boosts. Stamp duty relief, the Lifetime ISA and its sharp edges, the low-deposit products that exist right now, family help done properly and the schemes worth skipping.
- Finding the right home. Researching an area like a professional and reading listings like a sceptic.
- Viewings. Looking like a surveyor and thinking like a negotiator, with the physical checklist and the questions the agent should answer.
- The offer. Knowing the market you are bidding in, making the offer well and holding your nerve.
- Sale agreed. From decision in principle to mortgage offer and the survey that regularly saves thousands.
- Conveyancing without tears. Choosing a conveyancer, what searches and enquiries actually catch and the run to exchange.
- Completion day and the first 48 hours, including the documents you should be holding at the end of it.
- The first year. The budget that makes ownership calm, overpaying, remortgaging on time and working the warranty clock.
- Special situations. New builds, shared ownership, auctions, leasehold flats and buying with another person.
- When things go wrong. Gazumping, wobbles and how to complain formally.
- Checklists and a jargon translator for every stage.
Why it is free
We build homehogs, a home logbook that keeps documents, certificates, costs and jobs in one organised place. Chapter 16 is the argument for starting one on day one, when every document is fresh in your hands. You are welcome to take the guide and never think about us again.
