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It takes a great deal of commitment to save for a home, and when it’s your first one it can feel massively overwhelming to get saving for it. You need to have a good deal of financial discipline, you need to know where you can make shortcuts to build up your deposit, and you need to know all of the items you have to pay before you do anything else. 

Did you know you can potentially get a refund of stamp duty? Did you know that having a real estate agent to help you look for a home could save you money? If you don’t know the answer to those two questions then you really have a lot more to think about than you thought! The good news is that we explore how to design that budget you are looking for when you are saving for your first home below.

• Have a good savings goal in mind. Every single successful budget begins with a concrete goal. Don’t start out with the aim of simply saving to buy a house. Figure out the kind of property that you’d like to buy and go from there. You can use borrowing power calculators to first find out what you could potentially afford based on your income and your expenses after your deposit. You can then keep our property listings to find what you want in the area that you want to buy. Once you know what your savings goal is you’ll have something to work towards.
• Workout the final cost. Once you’ve got your home in mind you should calculate the size of the deposit you need to save it. For example, you may not need to save the full 20% of a house value, but you will have to consider lenders mortgage insurance when you don’t have that. If you choose to go ahead with lenders mortgage insurance you will need to only have a 5% deposit saved towards the cost of the house. If you have a guarantor on the loan, you might even be able to go with no deposit.
• Find out if there are any first homebuyer grants. You don’t often just have to rely on your home deposit to get your foot in the door of your first home. There are plenty of governments and states out there that offer stamp duty concessions for first time buyers, as well as home grants so that you can purchase your first home with a lot less money. If you qualify for these, factor these into your budget because that way, it’s going to cost you much less to go and start your first house.
• Look at your outgoings. When you know the number that you are working towards, you need to look at your outgoings and decide where you’re going to cut costs to save money. Don’t forget, you also need to budget for solicitor or conveyance fees because these will come with your upfront costs.
• Start working on your goals. Go slowly and start saving bit by bit. Possibly, open a separate account for your savings for home buying and make a point of cutting up the card that comes with it so that you are not tempted to use the money. Once you hit that savings goal it’s going to feel like the Holy Grail.