Rural Housing Week

Young Herefordshire couple delighted with their first home

Jack and Michelle have recently bought a brand new two-bedroom semi-detached house in Kingstone. Their new home is a Lagan Homes property, which was built to sell as an affordable home through Herefordshire Council's Discounted Market Sales scheme. The young couple are delighted with their new home and said that they would not have been able to afford to buy a property without the discounted scheme.

Jack and Michelle are 26 years old and are both working in Herefordshire. However, they are at the lower end of the salary scale. They had a good deposit to buy a house, courtesy of a legacy left by a family member. However, even with this, they couldn't afford to buy a property outright off the general housing market.

Jack and Michelle met at university in Wales and have been together for eight years. They lived in a one-bedroom private rented flat in Ross-on-Wye for three years and were going through the process of acquiring a shared-ownership property, when Jack was made redundant and they lost their opportunity to go through with the sale.

Jack says that although this was very upsetting at the time, it turned out for the best as they would have missed out on the opportunity to buy their current home.

Jack found a new job and the couple wanted to continue their search to be able to buy their first property. They had worked out that they had spent over £18,000 in rent over the three years of private renting and wanted to put their money into something they would eventually own. It was Michelle's mum who found the Kingstone property online. She advised the couple that this was a Herefordshire Council scheme for affordable housing and Jack contacted the council's Strategic Housing Team to find out more.

Having already completed the paperwork for buying a shared-ownership property, they knew they were eligible to buy the discounted sales property at 20% below the market value. However, the Strategic Housing Team guided him through the process and Jack is extremely grateful for their help and support in enabling him and Michelle to buy their very first home and making the process go so smoothly.

The couple used a mortgage advisor to find them the best mortgage. Jack recommends this, as it was a much easier process than when he was trying to sort out a mortgage on his own. Jack highly praises the Lagan Homes team for their excellent customer care and says that even now, ongoing communications are excellent.

The young couple are looking forward to their future and are getting married next year with wedding plans are well under way. They are also planning on getting their first dog together and are enjoying their first summer in their new home and garden.

Find out more about affordable home ownership.