First of all, sorry for the lapse in blog comms. What with bank holidays, half term etc, a slight lapse has occurred. Royal Wedding fever has finally also come to an end - the bunting’s come down and the street parties are over! Now can we all get on with talking about my favourite subject? Channel 5’s Extreme Fishing presented by Robson Green…ahem, I mean affordable housing.
So what are the issues currently affecting people hoping to buy their first home? Well according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, there’s been a slight increase in mortgage lending in recent months to first time buyers, in fact, they account for the majority of sales. Encouraging news but a lot more needs to be done.
There was a bit of a panic going on in the industry a couple of months ago about the likely demise of HomeBuy Direct – a really successful government-backed shared equity loan scheme which basically allowed first time buyers to take out an interest-free equity loan of up to 30% of the value of selected new homes. The loan was shared between the Homes & Communities Agency and developers.
Well, there’s good and bad news: the bad news is that HomeBuy Direct is definitely coming to an end at the end of March 2012. The good news is that it’s being replaced by a very similar new scheme called FirstBuy HomeBuy. The deal on the table is slightly less generous – the maximum loan is 20% - but it’s basically a similar scheme.
We’re about to find out which developments across the north west and South Yorkshire have been successful in their bids to offer FirstBuy HomeBuy, and we’ll share the news as soon as we can. All the big house builders are in the running again, and we’re excited about working with them to spread the word and make it all happen.
That’s it for now – I’m told that “short” and “sweet” best describe the seasoned blogger’s approach!
Thanks again for reading my blog, and as always, details on all HomeBuy developments in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Yorkshire can be found at www.plumlife.co.uk
Please feel free to drop me a line by email to: Matt@plumlife.co.uk