— For UK first-time buyers
Buy when you're ready. Not when they want you to.
Mortgage brokers earn when you buy. Their answer is always “yes, now.” Theo's answer is whatever your specific numbers say — deposit, monthly cost, pension, emergency fund. The honest readiness date, on your actual income.
Summer 2026 · Free · No card
Or run the numbers first ↓
Where most first-time buyers actually are
33
The average UK first-time buyer in 2025. With a £61,000 deposit. Saving for an average of seven years. Not behind — typical.
Source: Halifax First-Time Buyer Review 2025. The pressure to buy by 30 is mostly other people's noise.
Run your numbers
When will you actually be ready?
Mortgage rates move daily. Your salary changes. Your readiness date should be a live number, not a one-off check.
£15,000
£900 / mo
£450,000
Common high-street threshold. Better rates available.
25% government bonus on up to £4,000/yr. Adds £1,000/yr free if you max it.
You'll be ready
October 2028
2 years, 4 months from today, on your current numbers.
Deposit needed
£45,000
Incl. £2,333 LISA bonus
Monthly mortgage
£2,300
At today's ~5.5% rate, 30yr
Income to qualify
£90,000
Combined, at 4.5× multiple
What “ready” actually means
Hitting the deposit number is only half of it.
Emergency fund still intact
3 months of essentials sitting in cash. If you'd drain it for the deposit, the deposit isn't really there yet.
Pension contributions unchanged
Don't pause workplace pension to save faster — you lose the employer match and decades of compounding. The maths almost never works.
Stamp duty: ~£7,500
Between £300k and £500k, FTBs pay 5% on the slice above £300k. Budget this separately from your deposit.
Mortgage cost vs take-home
A £2,300 monthly payment should be ≤ 35% of combined take-home. If it isn't, you're stretched — even if a broker says yes.
Want Theo to track this for you — adjusting for rate changes, salary growth, and everything else your money should be doing?
Estimates use 4.5% cash savings APY, 5.5% 30-year mortgage rate, and current LISA rules. Real numbers will vary with rate moves and your specific lender. Rates change — check current rates before acting. This is guidance, not regulated advice. Theo refreshes these continuously when you connect your accounts.
A scenario you'll recognise
Same flat. Same paycheque. Two lives.
James and Priya, both 31. Marketing manager + product designer. Combined £130k. Target: a £550k 2-bed in zone 3 London. Friends are buying. They feel behind. They're not — they're typical. But the next 18 months matter more than the address.
The net result
Same flat. Better life. £62,000 more working in their pension by retirement.
They weren't behind. They were trying to skip the build-up phase.
Composite scenario, drawn from common UK FTB situations and our user conversations. Run your own numbers above.
What Theo does
Not a one-off calculator. Theo runs every decision, every payday.
Reads.
Your full financial life — current accounts, savings, ISAs, LISA, pension, debts — through regulated Open Banking. The whole picture, not a slice. Updated automatically.
Thinks.
About every decision on the path to buying — and every decision after. When you’re actually ready. Whether your deposit should sit in cash, partly in stocks, or in a LISA. Whether to overpay your mortgage later, or invest. On your numbers, in plain English.
Watches.
Every payslip, every rate change, every stamp-duty threshold, every salary bump. Quietly. Adjusts the timeline. Tells you when you’re genuinely ready — and when you’re not yet, even if a broker says yes.
“Half my friends bought too early because Halifax said they could. They’re house-rich and cash-stretched — paused pensions, no emergency fund, every spare quid pre-spent. The other half are still renting and feel behind, but most of them shouldn’t. The maths is rarely ‘buy now.’ I built Theo because someone needs to tell you what your specific numbers actually say.”
— Ciaran Hughes, Founder
Theo is financial guidance — not regulated advice. We hold ourselves to the standard of the FCA's Consumer Duty even though, as a guidance service, we're not required to. Encrypted at rest and in transit. Never sold.
— A closing argument.
Stop letting a mortgage broker set your timeline.
Theo runs the maths on your actual numbers — and tells you when you're ready, not when they want you to be.
Summer 2026 · Free · No card