When you're thinking of selling your existing property and moving to a new home, it's important that you try and budget accurately. The more accurately you can estimate this figure, the better.

How Much You Can Spend On a New House? To enable you to work out this, you first need to know what your total available funds are and then subtract the cost of moving home. Start by putting some simple figures down on paper, such as:

The first figure is easy enough to work, get at least three quotes from estate agents. Next,finding out what you still owe on your current mortgage is simply a matter of calling and asking your lender directly. Traditional financial wisdom recommends your monthly mortgage payments are no more than a third of your monthly net income (i.e. what you take home after tax). We don't want to sound patronising but we can't stress enough how important it is not to overstretch yourself.

Remember, if interest rates start to increase, you need to ensure that you can still afford the monthly mortgage payments. A mortgage adviser will be able to provide you with different figures depending on rate rises.

The amount that a lender will lend to you, very much depends on your individual circumstances and different lenders' affordability criteria. Lenders look at what you can afford to borrow, based on the number of people applying for the mortgage and assessing affordability, by taking into consideration your income and outgoings and any other liabilities that you may have.

Each lender is different and with thousands of different mortgages it pays to get the right advice.

The quickest way to discover the maximum you can comfortably borrow is by speaking to an experienced mortgage broker, such as ourselves, and getting them to check out available mortgage deals, that way you can be sure you get the right deal.