First Time Buyers

This guide to the home buying process is designed to help you along the way and answer any questions you may have.

First time buyers steps

How much can you afford?

When you’re looking to buy your first home (or indeed any home), it helps if you’ve got your finances in order. Getting your finances sorted will help you work out how much you can afford to buy a property for. Stonebridge can help you with this by arranging for you to get some guidance from one of our independent financial advisors. They will be able to talk through everything from your financial situation to what kind of mortgage might suit you.

Choose your next home

Once you have a ‘mortgage in principle’ (this is a statement from a lender, for e.g a bank or building society, to say they’ll lend you a certain amount of money to help you buy a home), we get to the exciting bit! Visit one of our developments or view our developments page and choose the perfect Stonebridge home for you. Our sales advisors can help with this too as they have lots of experience in matching people to houses!

Time to reserve

Once you’ve found your dream home and spoken with the relevant sales advisor, you can reserve your new home! (you’ll be required to pay a £500 deposit to secure your home). At this point, you will need to instruct a solicitor to work on your behalf. Again, Stonebridge can put you in touch with one of our experienced solicitors that work alongside us.

Surveys and your mortgage offer

After reservation, you will need to complete your full mortgage application (your financial adviser will help with this if you’re using one). When your mortgage has been approved, the lender will instruct a survey on the house you are buying. Following the survey, the lender will issue your mortgage offer. This usually comes within 7 – 21 days of your application.

You are now the legal owner

Once your mortgage is in place and the survey is done, it’s time to exchange contracts (this means both parties are legally bound to proceed with the sale). We will agree a moving-in day (usually your ‘completion date’) so you may want to start packing some boxes! On your completion date the balance of the monies becomes payable and you’ll receive your keys and deeds as the property is now legally yours. Prior to legal completion, you will have a customer demonstration of your new home with your Site Manager. They will explain how everything works and give you the opportunity to ask any questions you may have.

Say hello to customer care

Our customer care team will get in touch to introduce themselves and ensure that you know how to contact them should you have any queries once you’ve moved in.

Congratulations, you did it!

Last but not least, the only thing left to do is move in! Congratulations, you are the proud owner of your first new home. It’s now time to make some lovely memories.

Find a home

We have beautiful homes throughout the North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands. As well as several show homes, we also have a varied selection of virtual tours to help you experience what living in a Stonebridge Home is like.

Find out more

Be inspired

Keep up to date with our latest blog articles and videos for all things new homes and Stonebridge. Sit back and be inspired…

Find out more