The first step to being prepared to buy your first home

As a first-time buyer, you want to be clear on what you should be doing to feel prepared and ready to buy your first home.

In this guide, we teach you exactly that. Let’s start with the first step and why it matters so much to your success.

Step 1 - Where to start?

Many of the first-time buyers we speak to want to know about the process and what to expect. For some this leads to researching and googling articles such as “How to buy my first home” and “Steps to buying a house”. This is a great place to start as it gives you introduction to the process and what to expect.

Then there are other people who I talk to and for many of them, they just don’t know what their first step towards buying their first home should be. Again, they are stuck unsure about what to do next.

You are probably saving hard right now. But you may be feeling unsure about what to do next.

The best place to start is by taking your first step.

It’s all about knowing what is possible for you by being able to answer the following three questions:

  • Do you know roughly how much you can borrow?
  • Do you know how much you would need to save for a deposit? (and have you set yourself a savings goal?)
  • And do you know about the extra help and schemes that are available for you?

The problem is knowing the steps is not enough

There are so many great articles on the steps to buying your first home and they are really good at getting an overview.

However, what tends to happen is you read them and start to feel overwhelmed because most articles give you all 100 steps to think about at once. It’s great to know where you are going but equally it’s a lot to take in.

Once you take the steps you may still be confused

Another common problem we see is people getting confused by what they find. Their initial research just doesn’t make sense which often leads to a lack of trust.

In some cases it can leave you feeling stuck or worse even giving up on the thought of buying, at least for a while.

But the biggest problem is buying doesn’t feel real for you yet

If you are anything like me then when it comes to making big decisions you like to find out what you can, look at your options and be clear on where you are going before you fully commit and start to have have confidence to move forwards.

The trouble I often find myself in is that during all this research I often get stuck. Either I look into things too much or I just put it off. Sometimes this leaves me feeling overwhelmed or scared and when that happens I tend to wait.

 

Learn how to approach things in a better way that's right for you

The important thing is to break each step down and not let all the steps overwhelm you. It’s up to you how fast you go and the clearer you are the easier it will be for you.

Instead, get clear on what matters

If you want to avoid this happening there are some simple things you can do.

In the early stages it’s good to focus on three things:

  • Get clear on what stage you are at in the buying process and have a high-level plan of where you are going that is personal to you. Having a sense of where you are going will help you to feel less stressed and that you are making progress
  • Know that your main focus right now is on researching and figuring out what is possible for you. This will take the pressure off and make you more inclined to get this important first stage right before giving up or putting it off. It’s about having something to aim for that motivates you to keep going when things get a little scary.
  • Build your knowledge up beyond the basics so that you can start to understand what choices you have and what you need to look into next. The clearer you are on how things work the less confusing they will be and the easier it will be to make decisions in the future.

 

Learn these three things and you will start to feel like you are making progress

When you know these three things you will start to feel that buying your first home is real. It will become something that is achievable and you can believe in. It becomes exciting and something you can start looking forward to.

If you want to get started taking these first steps then check out our first-time buyer first step mini-course (It’s free).

In four simple videos, we teach you how to take your first step towards making buying real for you.

We invite you to take some simple exercises that are going to help you feel like you are making progress and moving forward.

  • Learn about our 3 stage strategy to making buying less scary
  • Get taken through the first steps of figuring out what is possible for you
  • Make sure you understand the different schemes that are available to help you buy sooner

YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE