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Colne Housing gives a helping hand to Colchester first time buyers
24th April 2008
Colchester’s leading affordable housing provider is giving a helping hand to the Borough’s hard-pressed first-time buyers with the launch of shared ownership homes.
Colne Housing is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year with the release of three, two-bedroom high quality shared ownership flats in their own block on Trinity Heights, Mile End Road.
The new homes are available now to first-time buyers earning less than £28,900-a-year who live or work in Colchester.
They can purchase the flats for a minimum of 50 per cent of the market price, whilst paying the balance at an affordable rent to Colne Housing.
The new opportunity to buy a shared home is set to boost first-time buyers who are struggling to raise substantial mortgages due to the credit crunch.
Jennifer Spencer, Leasehold Manager at Colne Housing, which owns and manages more than 2,000 affordable homes in north Essex and Suffolk, said: “There is a growing need for shared ownership homes in Colchester and we are expecting a great deal of interest in these new flats.
House prices have not dropped that much in Colchester despite the recent fall in the markets, but local salaries have not risen much more than inflation, if people are lucky.
The result is that it is even tougher now for first-time buyers to raise a mortgage, especially as many building societies are asking for ever-larger deposits and demanding ever higher rates of interest.
So for very many first-time buyers the dream of buying their own home is further away than ever.”
The Trinity Heights flats are built by Hopkins Homes which has developed a number of award-winning properties throughout the country.
Said Jennifer: “The homes are high quality and spacious. We are delighted to be able to market them now, at a time when so many people are struggling to get started with their first home.”
An application form and details of the properties are available from Colne Housing by calling (01206) 244700
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