In partnership with fintech company Life Moments, Leeds Building Society has launched an online tool that provides impartial guidance on the various available paths to homeownership open to prospective first-time buyers.

The new First Home Helper tool goes live on the Leeds Building Society website on 11 July, with the aim of helping aspirational homeowners to navigate their home buying options.

It does this by running through a series of questions that gives them useful hints and tips around their current financial situation, helps them to understand how much they may be able to borrow and how much they should put away each month, and provides informative highlights about different mortgages and schemes that are available in the wider market.

The options available to suit different circumstances could include standard or low deposit mortgages, rent to own schemes, family guarantor mortgages, joint borrower sole proprietor mortgages, and shared ownership.

The tool will deliver suggestions for routes to homeownership for aspirational first-time buyers who are unclear on the options available to them, and how long it might take them to get onto the property ladder.

Leeds Building Society conducted research last year, showing how confusing first-time buyers find the home buying process, with more than a third (36%) of people never having heard of shared ownership before.

The building society has seen a 19% increase in applications for shared ownership mortgages (Jan-May 2023 vs. Jan-May 2022) in response to the challenging housing market and cost- of-living crisis.