Orlando Crowcroft

There comes a time when you’re sitting around in the pub on a Sunday with friends and you suddenly realise that instead of swapping stories of wild, lost weekends and recounting last night’s drunken adventures everyone is talking about house prices. A few years back you may have overheard such conversations and quietly pledged that you will never be like that – until suddenly you are. Part of the reason buying a house tends to dominate conversations is that it that it’s hugely complicated, nerve-shreddingly stressful and takes longer than you’d think reasonably possible. It’s also the single biggest transaction you’ll make in your entire lifetime (especially if you’re a first-time buyer), both emotionally and financially. Essentially, buying in London is like renting in London, only with more hoops to jump through, more paperwork and loads more people to give money to. Follow these tips, though, and you’ll emerge at the other end a real-life, bona fide home-owner – a feeling that beats anything you ever felt as a renter. A more or less completely accurate representation of the process of buying a house. Sorting the mortgage Even before you hit the listings or start peering into estate agent windows, it’s important to know exactly what you can afford. The general rule with mortgages is that you can borrow five times your annual salary, but remember that lots of things – credit ratings, in particular – can scupper that. Ironically, if you’ve never been in debt it can be harder