First-time buyer? These are your mortgage options

If you're a fist-time buyer and getting a mortgage increasingly seems like an unachievable goal, you shouldn't despair. Of course, false hope is any aspiring home owner's enemy, and there's no point denying that the property market is currently unfriendly (to say the least) towards first-time buyers. Low-deposit mortgages? Pretty much gone. Deals that disappear overnight? It happens all the time now. 

We won't offer you advice you've already heard about how you should somehow cobble together a bigger deposit, because if you could, you would. Instead, consider the following options you may not have heard about previously. 

• Learn to find the best mortgage rates with the help of our guide
• Find out the latest, accurate information on house prices in our guide

1. Key worker? You may be able to get a low-deposit mortgage

One thing people may not know about – and this should be publicised a lot more – is the fact that many smaller, local lenders are offering 90-per-cent mortgages to people in key jobs such as the NHS and teaching. If you're a teacher, you should take a look at the Teachers Building Society. If you're a doctor, police officer, or postal worker, Reliance Bank has specific deals for key workers.

Also, not all of the big lenders are being horrible to first-time buyers. TSB have introduced an easier process for first-time buyers with on their 85-per-cent mortgages to help increase their chances of being accepted.

2. Have family? 100% mortgages are back

Actually, they never did go away, but a couple of banks pulled them, which is what made all the headlines. You can still get a guarantor mortgage from Barclays – your parents' property will have to guarantee your loan for a number of years. Tipton & Coseley now offer the 100 per cent or Family Assist mortgage too, and it comes with no fees.

3. Look into Shared Ownership

Don't fancy Help to Buy? Shared Ownership could be an option – you can buy as little 25 per cent of a home with a five-per-cent deposit. Shared Ownership isn't restricted to new builds, either, so it gives you a bit more flexibility. 

4. Don't like the mortgage rates you're seeing? This is temporary

Mortgage rates have been reported to have risen since the end of the lockdown, and this is true, but you've got to put this in perspective a bit. Over the past three months, two-year fixed mortgage rates have risen by an average of 0.14 per cent. That's not catastrophic. It's also temporary: as soon as the property market begins to cool next year, as inevitably it will, mortgage rates will also stabilise. 

You might as well start researching mortgage rates now, with the help of Habito's free mortgage comparison tool.