Apart from the financial side, I found the hardest part being expectation management. You can easily find houses on Right Move and those sort of websites so I don't think there's many barriers in finding somewhere.

I thought I could just go pick a house a buy it, like you would with pretty much everything else you buy. Nope... you don't really know that another 20 people also want the same house as you so it enters into a horrible bidding war and typically the ones who offer the most win. So the house advertised at £180k is now actually £210k just because.

Then you find out you are the preferred buyer, yay! You've won the bidding war... you have your mortgage in principle and your deposit and you're ready to go... you're ready to move in, but nope... prepare for at least three months and thousands of pounds of boring legal stuff and then there's still a chance someone else can trump your offer (in England at least).

Buying a house is full of shit processes and takes way too long.