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It was a flyer posted through the door that put Becci Scotcher and her boyfriend, Dan Cousins, on the path to homeownership; Previously, the couple, although they had good jobs, thought the price of housing was very low.
For more than two years, Becci and Dan paid £ 1,500 per cubic meter to rent a one-bedroom apartment in the posh Woodberry Down development at Manor House, north London.
The fateful leaflet offered first-time buyers the opportunity to buy a share of a property on the same site and, after calculating whether their joint savings and family help would amount to a down payment, decided to take the plunge. .
After a year spent at WFH in their small rental, the couple are now moving into their two-bedroom apartment.
They moved in December, having paid just under £ 200,000 for a 30% share of the property. “It’s so much bigger and it has a huge balcony, which will be absolutely awesome in the summer,” said Becci, who works for a foundation offering grants to musicians.
The shared ownership system, as Becci and Dan, a freelance writer, is often the only way for cash-strapped first-time buyers for an open market deposit to buy a home.
And this spring, a series of new developments in some of London’s best-located urban villages, from Maida Vale to Wimbledon, will begin to offer the same opportunity to others.
Becci and Dan at Woodberry Down, where they bought a 30% stake in a two-bedroom flat for just under £ 200,000
/ Richard Eaton
Manoir
For Becci, 39, and Dan, 30, Wood down was obvious. They had lived there since 2018 and already knew and loved both the area and the development, which has plentiful open space (a godsend during lockdowns), overlooks a pair of reservoirs, and is a short walk from the resort. Manor House underground station.
“We don’t feel like we’re in London, we describe it as our Zone 2 oasis,” Becci said. They have also already made friends there and, despite the lockdown, enjoy using the ‘really friendly’ pub, cafe and restaurant on site when they couldn’t be bothered to walk to Stoke Newington or Finsbury Park, nearby.
While shared owners only need to raise a 10% down payment on the portion of the property they purchase, the monthly program costs don’t come cheap. Becci estimates the mortgage, rent and service charge to be around £ 1,800. “Although we now have a two bedroom apartment,” she said.
The slightly controversial split owners have to pay the full service charge for their homes, even the part they don’t own, which for Becci and Dan is around £ 300 per cm.
“It’s a necessary evil if you get into a development,” Becci said. “Because we are shared owners, we also don’t have access to things like the pool and gym, but the concierges are really nice to us, and I guess full owners pay even more. . “
The other way to get a head start on the ladder is through Help to Buy, a government program that cuts deposit requirements to a minimum of 5% by offering a start-up loan of up to 40% of value. total of a property.
David and Patricia used Help to Buy at Peckham Place where condominium apartments are also available
/ Simon Jacobs
Peckham
Architect David Panek, 36, is a big fan of Help to Buy – the program allowed him and his sister Patricia, 26 and trained as an architect, to team up together to buy a house in one of London’s trendy neighborhoods: Peckham.
The siblings bought their top floor apartment in Peckham Place off plan and David was able to use his professional training to find the best property on the site. At around 940 square feet, it’s a decent size; the tire was his large roof terrace.
David and Patricia’s house cost £ 600,000 and they had a down payment of around 15 percent. Their timing couldn’t have been better: They moved in at the start of the spring lockdown and spent the summer lounging on their patio.
Before buying the apartment, David’s rent for a room in a shared house in Brockley was £ 850 pcm including bills. He and Patricia now split the monthly mortgage payments of £ 1,350 and a service charge of £ 160. “When you factor in the bills, it’s cheaper than renting, but not substantially,” he said.
A crunch will come after five years, when David and Patricia will have to start paying interest on their Help to Buy loan, which David says will increase their mortgage payments to around £ 2,000 per cm.
Peckham Place (nhgsales.com) also offers shared ownership plans, with two-bedroom duplex apartments, starting at £ 162,500 for a 25% share. The monthly costs are £ 1,896. There are also three bedroom duplex apartments starting at £ 187,500 for a 25% share. Buyers will need to be able to pay monthly payments of £ 2,052.
18 250 £: the minimum deposit for a one bedroom apartment at Royal Warwick Square
Kensington
In Kensington, nothing less, Peabody (peabody.org.uk) has condominiums for sale at Royal Warwick Square, two minutes walk from Kensington High Street and less than half a mile from Holland Park.
Prices start at £ 182,000 for a 25 percent share of a one-bedroom apartment.
Buyers need a down payment of at least £ 18,250 and, in addition to the mortgage payments of £ 971 pcm, they will need to factor in the rent (£ 228 pcm) and service charges (£ 220 pcm).
Two-bedroom flats start at £ 195,000 for a 25% share and the same monthly costs are estimated at just over £ 1,500.
From £ 196,000: a 40% share of a one-bedroom apartment at No 4 Oxford Road
Maida vale
Peabody offers another co-ownership offer: No 4, chemin Oxford, located in the ideal area between Kilburn Park and Kilburn High Road stations.
Paddington Recreation Ground is less than half a mile away, plus you have the gritty delights of Kilburn High Road and the trendy cafes and boutiques (after lockdown, of course) of Salusbury Road, Queen’s Park.
Prices for a 40 percent share of a one-bedroom apartment start at £ 196,000, with monthly costs including mortgage (£ 931), rent (£ 674) and service charge (90 £).
From £ 167,000: a 40% share of a one-bedroom apartment at Folium, Muswell Hill
Muswell Hill
Buyers looking for large spaces might look even further north, to le folio (catalyst.homes), minutes from Coppett’s Wood, a 36-acre nature reserve where hyacinths will soon bloom among oak trees.
The Folium is a 20-minute walk from the shops, bars and restaurants of Muswell Hill Broadway. Prices start at £ 167,000 for a 40 percent share of a one-bedroom apartment.
£ 4.688: the minimum deposit for a house at The Switch in Wimbledon
Wimbledon
Shared owners can also participate in Galliard Homes’ restart of the AFC Wimbledon pitch in South London, with hundreds of homes, shops and leisure facilities. Catalyst Homes has just over 180 condominium homes for sale in The switch, priced at £ 93,750 for a 25 percent share of a one-bedroom apartment.
The minimum deposit is £ 4,688 and the monthly costs include mortgage at £ 494, rent at £ 645 and service charge at £ 163.
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