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The House Hop First Time Buyer Guide

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Compare mortgages

All lenders offer products that are aimed at first time buyers, often with various incentives attached to them. Often these products do offer the best deal, however, you should still compare them to the standard products that are available — especially if you have a large deposit.

One way of reducing your monthly costs is to get a mortgage that is longer than the standard 25 year term — eg, for 30 or 35 years.

Be aware, however, that while this will reduce your monthly outgoings it will increase the lifetime costs of the mortgage considerably. See the examples in the following table for a mortgage of £150,000 at 5% interest:

mortgage term in years	monthly repayments £	total interest paid £	% increase in total interest paid
25	877	113,067	-
30	805	139,883	23.7
35	757	167,953	48.5

A possible compromise is to get a mortgage that will allow regular overpayments so that when your financial position improves you can reduce the term by overpaying.

For more information on what to look for when comparing mortgages see our "Guide to Mortgages".