First Home For Couple Thanks To Shared Ownership

A couple from Yate have been able to afford their first home at Bromford’s Ladden Garden Village development in the town thanks to the Shared Ownership scheme.

Samuel Wilmot and Sophie Bailey, both 26, feel relieved to finally be living together in a brand new two-bedroom apartment after only being able to stay with each other at weekends while Samuel was renting a house with his sister and Sophie was living with parents.

Shared Ownership gives first-time buyers and those who do not currently own a property the opportunity to secure a new build home. Homebuyers pay a mortgage on the share they own and pay rent on the remaining share, meaning a smaller deposit is required.

The apartment perfectly fits the needs of the couple in terms of its size, location and affordability.

Samuel says: “We are both beaming with it and cannot wait to have friends and family come over to see it. With current interest rates, home ownership felt like a distant dream, but with the reduced amount on the mortgage repayments and affordable nature of the rent and service charge, Shared Ownership made it cheaper and more viable for us to buy our own home. It’s a fresh canvas for us, something we can make our own and to be enjoyed. We’ve achieved something we’ve craved for so long, and now we can begin our next chapter and create memories together.”

Samuel and Sophie have settled into their apartment quickly, with the spare bedroom almost immediately becoming a mixture of a home office, make-up studio and guest bedroom.

While the couple had made a conscious effort to save, the lower deposit required for a Shared Ownership home compared to outright sale allowed them to still make the most of life.

Samuel adds: “We’ve still been able to enjoy life, holidaying twice a year and weekly coffee shop dates ensure we are still making the most of our time together. Of course, something always gets in the way – needing a new car, clearing loans for example, but after a smooth home-buying process with Bromford we have got to where we are now. We’re now close to both work and our social lives, and in an area with great access to the outdoors with the local park and lake, woodland walks and public footpaths just a stone’s throw from our new home.”

Despite there being a number of Bromford Shared Ownership developments across Gloucestershire, Bristol and the South West, Samuel and Sophie settled on Ladden Garden Village in Yate, and are the first to move into their particular block of properties.

Samuel concludes: “We’re eager to meet the neighbours as they move in and the community builds in time. It dawned on us at the start of the year that buying outright was never going to be affordable if we wanted to do it quickly, we would absolutely recommend Bromford Shared Ownership, it was the fastest route onto the ladder and has been such a smooth and quick process. We’d never got past anything more than a viewing previously, but from registering our interest in the apartment to completion, only six weeks has passed! There is no comparison to Bromford’s response time, thoroughness and ease of process.”

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