In the UK, you will usually need to pay at least 5% of the cost of the property yourself as a deposit. But this depends on the mortgage lender and your own situation, for example first-time buyers are more likely to be approved for mortgages with low deposits.
Some mortgage lenders will ask for a bigger deposit than this and a general rule-of-thumb is to save a deposit that is 20% of the price of the property you want to buy.
So, in our £150,000 house example above, a 20% deposit would be £30,000. If you’re a first-time buyer, you might find that there are mortgages you can take out that ask for a lower deposit – a 5% deposit would be £7,500.
The exact amount depends on how much the property costs. You could opt for a property that costs less so that your deposit makes up a higher percentage of the total cost.