Rise In Number of Affordable Homes Give Hope To First-Time Buyers

Amongst all of the doom and gloom news of higher mortgage rates and the troubles that  will have when looking to get a foot on the property ladder, there is now a little hope in the form of a rise in the number of affordable homes supplied during the last year.

Figures provided by the Department of Communities and Local Government reveal that 60,630 additional properties were made available to potential home owners in England during the 2010-11 period.

This rise in available abodes sees a five per cent increase from the total recorded across the 2009-10 period and is the highest amount since 1995-96.

Grant Shapps, housing minister, has commented on this by saying: “Reviving a house-building market that was brought to its knees takes time, so I am encouraged by today’s figures.”

The New Homes Bonus is set to bring £21 million to councils across the country, and Mr Shapps has urged local authorities to discuss how best to spend this money with the residents of the local area.

This news gets even better for those looking to obtain a  and invest in a new-build property when you look at the most recent government housing plans.

Mr Shapps has announced that the coalition’s desire to create up to 100,000 new homes in the next 4 years on formerly-used public land is still on track to becoming a reality.

Recently, departments have published plans displaying how they propose to create the new series of homes which may well prove to be popular with those first-time buyer mortgage holders.

“The government is one of the country’s biggest landlords, so at a time when we desperately need more homes, we have a critical role in making new sites available for developers and communities,” Mr Shapps went on to note.

The minister also claimed that neighbourhoods will be able to develop unused public land and buildings without a raft of bureaucracy that will ultimately slow down the process.

In the meantime, first-time mortgage buyers may be keen to look toward the north in search of affordable housing, if new research published by Halifax is to prove true.