What holds
Wales · First-time buyers

First-time buyers in Wales

Every mainstream calculator answers what a lender will lend. Below is the other question, worked through for a first-time buyer in Wales: which of the three limits runs out first, what is still theirs each month once the payment goes out, and what changes when the fixed rate ends and they take a new one.

An illustrative household — not real figures

Two incomes, renting, no property to sell and no mortgage to carry across.

Household income
£76,000
Take-home, combined
£4,750 a month
Living costs
£2,200 a month
Saving they intend to keep
£400 a month
Savings toward the deposit
£45,000
Maximum loan to value
90%
On these figures, the price that holds

£332,500

£1,512 a month over 35 years at 5.07%

When the fix ends, on a new deal at 7.00%

£1,897

40% of take-home, up from 32%

The limit they meet is their deposit — not the other two. At that price £488 a month is still theirs, with the £400 saving going out on top of it.

Cutting the saving would not raise this figure: their deposit limits the loan before the monthly payment does, so money freed up each month buys no more house — which means the saving is theirs to keep. That is the case a calculator built around a lender's maximum cannot show you, because it never asks what the saving was for.

Change these figures to yours

Opens the tool with this example loaded. The arithmetic runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Land Transaction Tax in Wales

LTT · verified 13 August 2026

LTT replaced Stamp Duty Land Tax in Wales in 2018. It is set in Cardiff, and its thresholds sit in different places from either of the other two — which matters as much as the rates do.

On the £332,500 above, the tax is £6,453 — and it comes out of the same cash as the deposit rather than being borrowed, which is why it lowers the price this household can reach rather than simply being a bill at the end.

  • up to £225,0000%
  • up to £400,0006%
  • up to £750,0007.5%
  • up to £1,500,00010%
  • above that12%

There is no first-time buyer relief in Wales. England, Northern Ireland and Scotland all reduce the tax for a first home; Wales does not. What it has instead is the highest nil-rate band of the three — nothing is charged up to £225,000 — which is worth more than relief to a buyer at the lower end and less to one further up.

The same household, priced elsewhere

Identical income, identical savings, identical monthly costs — only the region changes. The gap is the tax regime, and for a first-time buyer it is worth this much:

Rates from the Bank of England quoted household interest rates, two-year fixed, as at 31 July 2026. Purchase tax verified 13 August 2026.

Other situations in Wales

This describes what happens to one illustrative set of figures. It is not advice, not a personal recommendation and not a mortgage illustration. A lender will run its own affordability assessment and may lend more or less than the figure above.

Work it out with your own figures