FirstBuy helps family to buy new home in Sussex

A young family in Sussex have achieved their dreams of property ownership at last after buying a new home at Bovis Homes' Meridian End in Peacehaven, thanks to the recently introduced Government-backed NewBuy scheme.

Emma Morris and Andrew Durkin are now settling into the brand new home along with two-year-old son Stanley, after taking full advantage of the shared equity scheme.

FirstBuy is designed to get first-time buyers, or those re-entering the market, onto the property ladder. It works with a joint 20% loan from the Government and Bovis Homes, with the purchaser only needing a 5% deposit and a 75% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage which will come at a much lower interest rate than higher percentage LTV mortgages in the market place. The buyer has 25 years to pay back the equity loan, of which the first five years are interest-free.

At Meridian End FirstBuy is available on two, three and four bedroom homes, with prices beginning at £164,950. At that price the buyer would need a deposit of less than £8,250 and have an initial mortgage of less than £123,750.

Emma admits that when they started looking for a new place, they hadn't thought about getting a new build home, but they have no regrets.

"We had rented for ten years but we dreamt of owning our own place - and not paying anyone else's mortgage - for all that time." said Emma. "It has all happened very quickly and six months ago we really didn't imagine we would be living in our own home."

"FirstBuy turned out to be our only option if we wanted to buy our first property," said added. "It was proving to be impossible to raise the £40,000 deposit we would have needed on the open market and the FirstBuy scheme meant we could put down a £10,000 deposit."