Waving Goodbye to the barracks thanks to Help to Buy Schemes
6th November | Fitzroy Collection, Help to Buy
First time buyers Aaron Montgomerie and Emma Richardson celebrate combining Help to Buy schemes to get more for their money with Hodson Developments. A young soldier has finally been able to set up home with his sweetheart thanks to combining two Government schemes to help people get on the property ladder. Aaron Montgomerie, 31, who is in the Royal Engineers, was living on an army base in Wiltshire, while his partner Emma Richardson struggled to save a deposit while renting a home in Windsor. By successfully combining Forces Help to Buy with the regular Help to Buy scheme, the couple are now settling in to a new home at The Fitzroy Collection by Hodson Developments in Bracknell.
Forces Help to Buy assists serving military personnel such as Aaron to get on to the property ladder by loaning them 50% of their annual salary, interest free for 10 years, to put towards a deposit. It can also be used alongside the regular Government Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme and offers a further interest-free loan from the Government of up to 20% of the value of brand new homes worth up to £600,000.
“Without combining Help to Buy and Forces Help to Buy we wouldn’t have been able to afford to move at all,” says Emma, a 36-year-old HR business partner for a building company. “We have been trying to save for a few years, but we were going to struggle to ever get a full deposit together. Using the two schemes gave us the 5% deposit that we needed to buy; it just wouldn’t have been an option otherwise.”
“We love our spacious new home, and it was the perfect place for us to move as we have lots of friendly neighbours who welcomed us from day one,” says Emma. “We also have some friends that we already knew just up the road and we’re both close to work which makes life much easier. We now feel like we’re part of a real community.”
Christie Alaimo, Sales Director for Hodson Developments, says: “We are delighted to be able to offer the Forces Help to Buy scheme at the Fitzroy Collection. It’s particularly helpful that the scheme can also be combined with Help to Buy, and we can guide buyers through every step of the process.”
Hodson Developments’ experience of the two schemes was certainly a great help to Aaron and Emma. “The whole process of moving was made much easier thanks to the guidance we received, which made everything incredibly straightforward,” says Emma. “And best of all, our mortgage repayments are now less than it was costing us to rent, and we now have a property of our own. We got much more for our money buying this way.”
Bracknell is a great place to set up home, with a £250 million regeneration scheme for the town centre currently underway that has already seen the opening of The Lexicon, a stunning new destination featuring 70 shops, restaurants and leisure facilities. With trains reaching London Waterloo in an hour and great road links via the M25, M4, M3, M40 and A30, Bracknell is well located for commuters.
Currently available at The Fitzroy Collection is a range of stylish two- and three-bedroom garden apartments, apartments and penthouses, with prices starting from £319,950. With Help to Buy, this can be secured with a minimum 5% deposit of £15,997.50.
To find out more about the homes at the Fitzroy Collection, contact 01344 481 893 or view The Fitzroy Collection here.