Making the decision to buy a property for your next home should come with some careful consideration to help make your buying experience a good one.

The first thing to make sure is that buying a property suits your plans and finances and this can be done by completing a budget.

Once you know that you have the right budget plan, now is the time to get an idea of the particulars, such as locations, sizes of property, number of beds and price ranges of where you would like to search, but also knowing the time frames you are working towards moving.

The most vital step to planning is checking your finances, and there  are two sides to this...

1 - Making sure that you have enough income to buy a property, knowing that you can commit to a monthly mortgage as well as the running costs for your home and living expenses.
2 - Understanding the upfront costs that you will need to buy to buy a property such as legal and agency fees.

There are a few costs and fees that are associated with buying a property that should be taken into consideration when looking at buying a property, including the deposit, insurance and mortgage payments, stamp duty, land tax charges and solicitors fees.
Here is a great link for information to help you with this here 

There are many mortgage providers out there and many mortgage types that come with different interest rates for different people and requirements, but it is all about finding the right one for you and your requirements.

View here to see a list of mortgage comparisons to find the right one for you.

Once you have found the right mortgage lender, you can then begin the process of the application.

Now you have the laid the main foundations of property purchasing it is time to start looking at available properties and booking viewings. 

Hello New Home specialise in property purchasing and selling and use some of the major property channels to showcase properties, you can find our latest properties here.

We also have a property alert which will notify you when we have the right property that is your ideal match when it becomes becomes available. You can do that here

Once you have found the property that you love, simply call the agent and make an appointment to go and view the property.

Viewings are normally 15 - 30 minutes. Have a really good look around the inside and outside of the property, ask the agent questions, and really get a good feel for the house, location and area.

A good thing to remember is to write down any specific questions that you would like to ask about the property before hand so that you remember to ask.

Yey, you have found your next home, but now it is time to make the offer and to make it the best one so your offer is accepted.

You can do this by finding out how many other people are bidding on the house, what offers the seller would take and are they open to negotiations?

If the competition is low, you may decide to  go in for a low offer and wait for a response and adjust your offer from there. 

If your offer is accepted, then you can ask them to take the property off the market to avoid another buyer offering a higher bid, you may also pay the deposit to hold.

Now that you have made an offer, it is time to appoint a solicitor who will handle all of the legal processes, which is known as conveyancing - the legal process of passing ownership of a property from one person to another, including:

To ensure that there is a smooth process to the sale of the property, it is vital that a home survey is completed.

This is known as. conveyancing survey, and is to check the value of the property and its condition.

A basic survey will be arranged through your mortgage lender, but if you would like a more extensive survey completed you can ask them or arrange for yourself at an additional cost. You can look here for a RICS surveyor.

A Chartered Surveyor is a qualified expert who will draw up the reports detailing any issues with the property and the costs.

There are 3 levels of surveys which include:

Once all of the paperwork has been completed, your solicitor has completed all of their stuff and the mortgage is all received, it's time to breathe!

Now it is time to agree a completion date to exchange contracts with the sellers.

Once all the money has been exchanged and the contracts have been signed, the exchange date arrive and you will receive your keys and can begin moving into your new home.