Buying your first home is a huge step and it is one of the most important purchases you will ever make. Ideally, your first home will be a stepping stone on the way to building a whole portfolio of property investments, so it pays to do your homework before buying your first home.

As one property purchase may lead to another, banks and lenders are eager to attract first home buyers who are likely to need to use more of their financial solutions over the years to come. As a result, most of the banks offer specialised first home buyer solutions, such as range of options offered by Westpac.

The team at westpac are able to help you through the process of applying for a home loan, but bear in mind they are only able to offer Westpac products. Independent financial brokers have a wider range of products that are likely to offer more competitive home loan deals.

If you dont have a deposit saved, this is not necessarily a barrier to applying for Westpac home loan. Westpac can lend up to 100% of the value of your property with their Westpac Family Guarantee, which allows eligible borrowers to use their family home as security.

Of course, even though Westpac can loan you 100% of the money required to purchase your first home, remember that you still need to raise enough cash to cover the upfront expenses of home-buying which can include stamp duty, government fees and charges, tax, insurance and estate agent fees.

Westpac are also able to assist first home buyers with applications for the First Home Owner Grant. This is around $7,000 in most states of Australia, and can be extremely useful in covering some of the costs of buying a home for eligible applicants.

The Westpac home loan team can help first home buyers to understand the range of features available with their Westpac home loan products, and work out which of these featuresfor example, securing as low an interest rate as possibleis best suited to their home loan borrowing needs.

Before you enter the property market, you should enlist the help of a financial broker who can help you through the process and access a wide range of home loans rather than restricting yourself to one lender. Do your homework early and youll soon reap the rewards of owning your own home.