First time buyer advice needed!

Research. And lots of it.

We went through an IFA, and searched on the net and also spoke to our own bank. We could then make an informed decision on what we wanted.

You will need proof of identity and earnings.

First thing is find out how much you can borrow before you start looking at houses and fall in love with something you can't actually afford. Most lenders will got to 3x your joint income but we found a couple which would go to 5x.

Also make sure that the payments are affordable once you've budgeted in the household bills, electric, gas, council tax, water in, water out, landline phone, food - they soon add up! If you go for a tracker mortgage then you have to make sure that if you monthly payments increase that you'll still be able to afford it.

Remember to factor in all the fees involved such as solictors, land searches etc you can't add these fees to your mortgage so you need to take them out of the deposit money you've saved. Some brokers will charge you a fee and some mortgages also have a set up fee which can range from a few hundred pounds up to a thousand pounds.

A few years ago you could get 100% or 90% mortgages but alot of lenders now are going for 80% or even 75% (which is what ours is) as it's less risk for them.

You'll need three months worth of payslips as proof of income - not to hard if you are paid monthly but was a nightmare when we bought our first place as I was being paid weekly and had to search for 12 bits of paper!