‘It is encouraging to see the government making a bold move in boosting mortgage availability and showing real confidence in the market once again. New home construction provides a significant contribution to the UK’s general economic growth and the availability of mortgages is a major contributing factor in this,’ said Ian Baker, Linden Homes Group divisional managing director.
‘We’ve secured partnerships with three major lenders to enable us to offer NewBuy at our developments across the country and are now keen to see as many major high street lenders as possible get on board with the scheme to ensure its benefits can be felt across the country,’ he explained.
‘We know the demand for new homes is there, and we are seeing record numbers of people visiting our sites across the country. Last quarter alone, we had almost 2,000 first time buyers register an interest via our website to receive information about our specific developments,’ he explained.
‘However, buyers are telling us that mortgages remain difficult to obtain. And it’s not just first time buyers saying this, many existing homeowners are struggling to move into a new home due to a lack of equity in their properties due to a downturn in valuations.
‘We believe NewBuy will further extend a helping hand to people struggling to get onto or step up the property ladder, and its visibility will help to provide buyers with the confidence they had pre-recession that responsible lending is attainable,’ he added.
At the end of last year, Linden Homes became the first house builder to launch its own 95% mortgage indemnity scheme, Step Up. Similar to NewBuy, Step Up is open to all new home buyers with a 5, 10 or 15% deposit, and offers a mortgage fixed until April 2015.
