First-Time Buyer Event Roundup

On June 29th, Centrick hosted a much-anticipated First-Time Buyer event – a comprehensive rundown of the state of the property market for prospective first-time homeowners, and how to navigate its complexities. We were pleased to call Selly Oak’s most desirable new homes development, Florence Place, our venue for the event, and were delighted to welcome members of the ME Financial and Aconveyancing teams who helped to answer many of your burning questions on the current market for first-time buyers. We’d like to extend a huge thank you to those who took the time to attend the event and prepared insightful questions for our hosts, as well as the team at Florence Place for allowing us to showcase their modern-yet-characterful development as an example of premium first-time buyer homes in Birmingham.

Couldn’t attend? Here’s Centrick’s rundown of what you missed out on…

The State Of The Current Market

It is no secret that the UK property market has experienced some peaks and troughs over the last few years. House prices have reached an average of £285,000; rent is taking up the largest proportion of our household income since records began; interest rates are on the rise. However, there is still plenty of hope for first-time buyers in the form of home buying schemes and expanding mortgage options. Here’s what you may have missed:

Home Buying Schemes

Many first-time buyers felt disheartened at the end of the Help To Buy scheme. However, plenty of other schemes remain available for those purchasing their first home. We have a full rundown here in our What’s Available For First-time Buyer’s blog, but here are the main schemes you can access in brief:

First Homes Scheme

An incentive that provides considerable discounts on your first property purchase. The scheme provides local residents with local housing solutions, specifically key workers, by offering 30% off any eligible new build properties when compared to properties of equivalent market value. After reduction, properties must be worth £250,000 or less, and the scheme can help buyers save up to £70,000.

Affordable Homes Scheme

This provides a number of homes at a reduced price, specifically for first-time buyers to purchase. It is akin to the first homes scheme, albeit with different eligibility criteria.

Shared Ownership

Allows first-time buyers to purchase a portion of a property with a traditional deposit and mortgage and pay rent to a housing association on the remaining portion of the property. This is advantageous for those who have a small deposit, but have monthly income to afford mortgage or rent payments. Homeowners can choose to take ownership of more portions of their home in a process called ‘staircasing’, until they eventually own the entire property outright.

Mortgages

As a first-time buyer, you’ll likely need to borrow capital from a lender in order to afford your home purchase. At our event, we consulted the experts at ME Financial, who explained that preparation is key to making a property transaction as smooth as possible in the current market. Here are ME Financial’s top tips:

• Prepare your credit score and understand ways to improve it before purchasing a home
• Consult with a mortgage advisor who can help you make sense of your options, especially with interest rates rising
• Be prepared to make changes to your budget: you may not be able to afford your repayments if the economy worsens
• Always have your wage slips, bank statements and ID on hand to help your mortgage consultations and applications run smoothly.

We also discussed how Skipton Building Society have announced a Zero Deposit Mortgage, which allows buyers to get onto the housing ladder despite having little to no deposit. This is a fantastic option for those who have been stuck in a rut with renting, which has left them with little money to set aside for a house, despite being able to prove that they are able to make regular property payments to a landlord or housing association.

Conveyancing

If you have not purchased a property before, you are likely unfamiliar with conveyancing. Luckily, we had Aconveyancing on hand for our First-time Buyer event to guide us through the minutia of conveyancing, and what a conveyancer actually does.

As experts in property law, a conveyancer or solicitor is a crucial part of your home-buying process. They keep in contact with all of the relevant parties to ensure that everybody is up to date and moving the property transaction along, thereby taking away much of the hassle for the purchaser. They also gather information regarding the legal stance of your property, submit information to the Land Registry when necessary, and help you deal with the exchange of funds to make your property purchase. The team at Aconveyancing have years of experience helping both experienced and first-time buyers make their property purchase a breeze – we highly recommend exploring Aconveyancing here!

Explore Florence Place

Searching for a place to call home? Explore the home of our First-Time Buyer event – Florence Place! Combining well-preserved architecture from the base of the former Selly Oak Hospital with the fixtures and fittings you’d expect from a premium 21^st Century development, Florence Place is the perfect place to put down roots for your first home. With Selly Oak station just a stone’s throw away, and the abundance of activities, opportunities and facilities of Birmingham City Centre a short commute away, Florence Place simply could not be better located to take advantage of everything the city has to offer. With prices starting at just £215,000, and many of our event attendees seeming keen to snap up one of these premium apartments, we strongly recommend booking a viewing at Florence Place.

Written By

Jenna Coghlan

Job Title

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