FIRST-TIME buyers Bethany and Ryan managed to knock £67,000 off the cost of their home, but they almost lost it all for a simple reason.
Buying your first home is an expensive business, and many people often feel that getting a foot on the property ladder simply isn’t possible.
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But there are government schemes to help savers desperate for a place of their own.
Nurse Bethany and her partner Ryan, a joiner, used the First Homes Scheme to buy their three-bedroom semi-detached home in Hull.
First-time buyers can bag a home with a discount of up to 50% using this government scheme.
Bethany, 29, and Ryan, 27, managed to get a 30% discount worth £67,000 on their first home.
The home’s discount will stay with the property forever, which means you must give new buyers the same percentage discount that you got, based on the property’s value at the time of sale.
For example, if your house was on the market for £100,000 with a 30% discount, you would get £70,000 from the sale.
You can only sell your property to someone who is also eligible to use the First Homes scheme.
To access the scheme, you will need to have a deposit worth at least 5% of the discounted purchase price and earn less than £80,000 a year or £90,000 in London.
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Local councils may also add further rules such as a local connection or reserving the properties for key workers only.
First Homes is usually offered on a small number of properties within new developments, so you will need to look for local builders advertising the scheme and apply through them.
If you don’t know who your local council is, you can find it using this handy tool.
Bethany also made the most of her Lifetime Isa and managed to bag £4,000 free from the government.
Anyone between the ages of 18 and 40 can open a Lifetime Isa to save for buying a first home.
Savers are able to withdraw money from their ISA if they are buying a home, over 60, or terminally ill with less than 12 months to live.
But you’ll pay a 25% charge if you withdraw money or transfer the Lifetime Isa to another type of Isa before the age of 60.
But the couple nearly lost it all when they found that Ryan’s credit score had been affected by an unpaid water bill.
We sat down with Bethany to chat through how she overcame these challenges to become a homeowner for The Sun’s My First Home series.
Tell me about your home
It’s a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Hull.
Downstairs is the front room, with a big open kitchen and large patio doors leading into the garden.
The garden is a good size for our two pet dogs.
Upstairs there’s a small bedroom, a second which is a reasonable size and a master bedroom.
We wanted to have at least two bedrooms so there was somewhere for Ryan’s son to sleep when he stays over.
How did you decide on location?
I had my heart set on a new build property so I was thrilled when we came across the Keepmoat estate.
It feels like its own little community with shops and cafes, so there are lots of great amenities right on our doorstep.
The house is also really convenient for work – it takes me around around minutes to get there and it takes Ryan around five minutes.
How much was it?
We bought our home through the First Homes scheme.
It allows buyers in England to buy their first home with a discount of up to 50%.
My house was on the market for £225,000 and we got a 30% discount of £67,000.
This meant our house cost £158,000. We put down a 10% deposit of around £16,000.
We took out a mortgage of £142,000 over 35 years at a fixed rate of 5.9%. Our mortgage repayments are £800.
How did you save for it?
I first started saving in 2018 while I was studying nursing at University in Manchester.
While I didn’t have a strict timeline for buying a house, I did intend on eventually using the cash I had saved to put towards a deposit.
As I was a student, I got a £3,000 maintenance loan paid into my bank account at the beginning of each term.
I would take around £1,000 out of this to cover things like my rent and bills, and the rest I would put into a Lifetime Isa.
To make sure I had enough cash to live on, I worked NHS bank shifts at the weekend, alongside the 13 hours of placement I had to do through University.
While this was tough, I knew it would be worth it in the end – and by the time we came to buy, I had £16,000 in my Lifetime Isa, including a £4,000 bonus from the government.
After I finished my degree in April 2022, I moved in with my parents to save cash on rent and paid them a few hundred pounds a month.
Ryan was also living with his parents, and started to save towards our deposit in 2022.
We worked out that he needed to save between £600 and £1,000 a month to get to our goal amount.
To do this, he started working a lot of overtime, often putting in 12 hours days five days a week.
Ryan was paid weekly, and he set up a standing order for the cash to leave his account straight away.
Between April 2022 and moving into our property in April 2023, we really cut back on all of our spending.
We stopped taking the dogs to the groomers and bathed them at home, we didn’t buy birthday presents for each other and even cut back on visits between Manchester and Hull.
This all helped us to get to our deposit amount of £16,000.
How did you afford to furnish it?
Our good saving habits had put us in a good position to be able to buy brand new furniture.
We bought a £2,000 package from the home builders which included spotlights, integrated appliances and extra plugs.
I already had some pieces of furniture from when I was renting, including a television.
Were there any complications?
Unfortunately, we found out by accessing our credit history through Experian that Ryan had a poor score due to an unpaid water bill and that it would affect his ability to borrow.
After moving out of his rented flat that he shared with a previous partner, Ryan thought he had removed his name from the tenancy and the bills.
But his name remained on file with the water company and had been for almost two years.
We tried to contact the water company, but they said it wouldn’t be possible to remove the black mark against Ryan’s name.
We went to the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) who advised us how to approach the company and what evidence to provide to show he didn’t live there at the time.
Eventually, after six months, the water company accepted the proof and the outstanding debt was removed from Ryan’s credit file.
What advice would you give to other first-time buyers?
Definitely get a lifetime Isa – it’s the best decision that I made.
You get a good sum of cash for free and it really helps towards getting your deposit together.
Meanwhile, we reveal how one family used the snowball method to clear £26,000 worth of debt and buy their first home.
One savvy saver managed to put half of his wages away while still renting to buy his first home.
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