You might have seen us shouting about how easy it is to get your first mortgage, but what do we actually mean?

We know that for many first-time buyers, getting your first home and mortgage can be a daunting prospect, but for most, it was actually easier than they thought.

In fact, research from Zoopla shows that two thirds of first-time buyers thought the process was easier than they thought.

We think that getting your first mortgage is particularly easy with The Cumberland, with deposit requirements starting from just 5%, £1,000 cashback on selected products, and our amazing support for first-time buyers.

The amount you can borrow depends on your income, outgoings and individual situation. You can get an idea of what you could borrow with our Mortgage Calculator, but for more detailed figures speak to one of our mortgage and protection advisors.

If you want to apply for a mortgage with a second person, we will usually take into account your joint incomes.

Once we have talked to you about a mortgage, we can give you a Mortgage Affordability Certificate, showing how much we will lend you if the valuation of the property is satisfactory.

We're one of the few lenders who offer 95% loan to value mortgages, which means you only need a deposit of 5%.

However, the bigger your deposit, the lower your loan to value and therefore the lower your mortgage interest rate may be.

The length of time it will take you to get a mortgage depends on several different factors including your circumstances, the property and legal procedures.

Once the mortgage application form has been completed, we will send a valuer to prepare a mortgage valuation report on the property to make sure we can lend you what you want. We will also check your income and financial status.

You will need to instruct a conveyancer to handle the legal details (procedures for buying a house in Scotland are different from the system in England and Wales so it is important to contact a conveyancer at an early stage for guidance).

While you're doing this, we check your application and obtain references and a valuation. Providing these are satisfactory, we will offer you the mortgage. This usually takes two to three weeks, but we can normally give you an immediate "in principle" decision.

Initial costs

In addition to the deposit you will have other expenses such as conveyancer's fees (including registration fees and possibly stamp duty land tax), valuation fees (unless the mortgage product you've chosen includes a free valuation) and insurance costs. We will go through these with you so that you can work out how much you need to borrow.

Monthly mortgage payment

The amount of the monthly mortgage payment depends on:

• how much you wish to borrow
• how many years you pay it back over
• the type of mortgage you choose
• the current interest rate, and
• whether or not you decide to pay your house and contents insurance along with your mortgage payment.

Take all these points into account and with the help of a Mortgage Illustration you should have a good idea of how much your mortgage will costs each month.