The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has launched a new property portal making it easier for Londoners with modest incomes to buy or rent at a price they can afford.
Part of the Mayor’s continuing commitment to increase the accessibility and supply of low cost housing to buy or rent in the UK capital, his new FIRST STEPS portal, hosted in partnership with Sharetobuy.com, provides a direct link between first time buyers and affordable home ownership schemes developed through the Mayor’s FIRST STEPS programme, making the process of finding a home quicker and easier.
improve homes for working Londoners. This includes cutting red tape, broadening the range of schemes available to intermediate home buyers, and making it easier and more attractive to buy in the capital.
It builds upon and improves the former FIRST STEPS website and will be delivered at no cost to the public purse. In fact over the next three years the new portal will save London’s taxpayers £5m and allow the Mayor to focus even more funding at delivering much needed affordable homes.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “We’re investing huge sums in affordable housing in the capital and this fantastic new portal shows potential homeowners what they can rent and buy, and where. With homes available right across London there’s a variety of buying options to suit every pocket, making it easier for people to move into affordable home ownership.”
The new portal is hosted by Share to buy, originally a mortgage broker, who use their mortgage knowledge in the portal to list each property with clear and transparent affordability information – e.g. how much deposit is required to buy each listed property. They first launched a property portal focused entirely on shared ownership properties in November 2010.
James Cartlidge, founder and Director of Sharetobuy.com, said: “At Share to buy, we are passionate about the challenge of making housing affordable and are delighted to have been invited by the Mayor of London to take over the running of his FIRST STEPS property portal. Products like shared ownership can appear complex, and our aim is to break down barriers of understanding by utilising robust affordability information in every property we display on the portal. Thus, at sharetobuy.com/firststeps, you can search not just by area, but also by the deposit and monthly budget you can afford”.
