If your goal for 2023 is to buy your first house, then you need to make sure that you are prepared and ready to go! Buying your first home is a huge achievement, and you need to put in some planning to ensure that all goes smoothly.
Although it is tempting to start looking around at houses once you have made your decision, the first thing that you need to do is to make sure you can actually buy one. Getting a mortgage in principle is the first step, however, to do this it is highly likely that you will need some deposit ready to put down as the vast majority, if not all mortgage lenders will require one.
Of course, the more that you have to put down as a deposit, the greater the options are for you – speak to an independent mortgage advisor. If you are going down the new build or shared ownership route, they will often help you to get a mortgage and will usually have a mortgage advisor who can speak to you and discuss your options.
You also need to make sure that you can provide the information for an AML identity check. This is something that is done to prevent money laundering, something that the UK property market has been attractive to in the past, so these checks help to clamp down on it. You will be asked to provide proof of where your g=funds are coming from as well as identification.