Property ladder - how do you get on it and how does it work?

[asblackasyoursoul]

I'm 21 and totally naive to mortgages and buying houses. I'm still at home with my parents but we're in council housing so I can't ask them as they won't know (as far as I'm aware no one in my family has ever owned a house).

So getting onto the property ladder. Is it best to get a mortgage on somewhere cheapish, say £150k? But then what happens if a few years later I want to move to a different house that costs more (let's assume I've got the money to do so). I know this is probably a totally ridiculous question but I've been googling and my head is a bit scrambled with it all.

If I've only paid a few years of the mortgage on the £150k house then how on earth does it work with selling it when it isn't actually my house?

Is it best to just save, save, save for a few years to get the 'ideal' house? I'm totally lost, please be gentle!

You can rent out a room to a lodger without having to pay tax on the first £7500 of income. That's over £600 a month, which can really help towards mortgage repayments.
www.gov.uk/rent-room-in-your-home/the-rent-a-room-scheme

If you plan to do this, discuss with your mortgage broker whether the morgage lender needs officially to be informed; ditto your building and contents insurance company.

When it comes to furnishing your first home, charity shops and secondhand furniture shops /EBay can save you thousands and thousands. Second-hand furniture is often very good quality; ditto second-hand curtains and things such as old-fashioned pure cotton bedding.

I bought my first house in my 20s. It was old though structurally sound but utterly grotty; my mother cried when she saw it. But I was young and had lots of energy to clean and redecorate; I lived there happily - at first with a very nice lodger who eventually left when she got married - for several years.