First-time buyer's guide
A walkthrough of the calculators most relevant to buying a first home — updated to reflect what's actually available to new buyers today, not what used to be.
Help to Buy (Equity Loan) is closed to new applicants. In England and Scotland, the scheme stopped accepting new applications on 31 October 2022, with all approved purchases required to complete by 31 March 2023 — it isn't something a new buyer can apply for today. Wales ran its own separate version, due to close in September 2026.
If you already have an existing Help to Buy equity loan from before it closed, it continues under its original terms, and the Help to Buy calculator on this site is still relevant for tracking it — see Step 3 below. If you're a new buyer, the more relevant government-backed routes currently include 95% deposit mortgages, the First Homes scheme, Shared Ownership, and first-time buyer Stamp Duty relief — none of which this site has a dedicated calculator for yet, so it's worth checking gov.uk's current schemes page directly for the up-to-date detail on those.
What follows is a description of what two of the calculators on this site do and how they might fit together when saving for and buying a first home — not a recommendation for what to do or how much to save. See our Terms & Conditions for why we're not the right people to ask for that.
Lifetime ISA — saving toward a deposit
Still fully active, unlike Help to Buy. The government adds 25% on top of whatever you contribute — up to £4,000 a year — and the whole pot can be put toward a first home (subject to the scheme's own price cap and other conditions) or kept for retirement instead. This calculator projects how that balance could grow depending on how much you contribute and for how long.
Mortgage Calculator — once you have a deposit
Models your mortgage balance and interest over time once you've actually bought, and lets you explore overpayments — a flat monthly amount, a schedule that changes over time, or one-off lump sums at specific dates. Useful both before buying (to get a feel for what different mortgage sizes and rates might mean) and after.
Help to Buy — only relevant if you already have one
Not a step for new buyers to consider — included here only because this site has a calculator for it. If you took out a Help to Buy equity loan before the scheme closed, this projects how the amount you owe changes as your property value changes (since it's always a percentage of current value, not a fixed sum), and models a few ways you might repay it.
Both the Lifetime ISA and Mortgage calculators draw their growth, interest and inflation assumptions from UK Rates, so changing the scenario there — or overriding an individual rate — updates both projections together.
This page describes what these calculators do, not a recommendation for what to enter or what home- buying route to pursue. Government schemes for first-time buyers change fairly often — always check gov.uk for the current position rather than relying on this page alone. See our Terms & Conditions for the full detail, or our overview of every calculator to browse the rest.