The affordable home ownership initiative, launched by the government, offers homes at a discount of at least 30% of the market value to help first-time buyers and keyworkers to become homeowners in the communities in which they live or work.
The nurse, Laura, said it felt ‘surreal’ to have moved into her house. “It has been a long time coming and something we have worked towards for the past few years,” she said.
“When the First Homes scheme became available it was too much of a good opportunity to miss, it enabled us to put down a 10% deposit on our house – something we would probably not have been able to do without the scheme.
“There are so many advantages with the scheme and it gave us a chance to own a three-bed detached house and our first home to grow in to.”
Meanwhile, police officer, Phoebe, said: “I’ve always wanted to own my own home, I secured my dream career at 22 and worked so hard to save up. It’s such a nice feeling knowing you have something to call your own, it’s my pride and joy.
“It’s great that through First Homes you can get a discount on a house which you would be saving up years and years for. It’s also nice that the scheme prioritises people who are in key working environments – giving something back to keyworkers.”
Mortgages for First Homes
Mortgage lenders including Newcastle Building Society and Nationwide have pledged to support the scheme.
Stuart Miller, chief customer officer at Newcastle Building Society said: “We’ve seen significant interest from customers and brokers in our First Homes mortgage products which is not surprising given they offer first-time buyers a significant discount on the purchase price of a property, very competitive interest rates and low deposit requirements.”
Building more homes
As part of the scheme a total of 1,500 First Homes will be built in 100 locations across England by March 2023, the government said.
And the announcement came as the government also published details on its Help to Build project, a £150 million scheme to make self and custom build housing a realistic and affordable option for potential homeowners.
According to the government, the self and custom build sector could deliver up to 40,000 new homes a year, providing opportunity for small building firms and creating jobs.
Buildstore, a specialist provider of self and custom build mortgages, said this was a ‘significant step in the right direction of thousands of people who aspired to build their own home’.
Indeed, it requires just a 5% deposit compared to most other self and custom build mortgages require at least a 20% down payment.
BuildStore’s CEO Raymond Connor said: “Help to Build will also benefit people who want to buy a customised home. This is where small to medium sized developers create custom build houses to your specification, on an assigned plot of land, which is very popular in many European countries.
“Self and custom build is a growing market, and we expect the scheme will help to create thousands of new self and custom build homes over its four-year lifetime.”
First-time buyers are being directed to the Own Your Home website for more information.
You can find out more about all the government schemes available to support homeownership here.
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