London first-time buyers: ‘My mortgage is £500 a month thanks to Help To Buy’

It took years of saving up plus a fair dose of compromise to get Céline Landra a home of her own.

When she turned 30, Céline Landra realised her lifestyle of hopping from one shared property to another was starting to pall, so she really needed place of her own.

“I was done with sharing common areas and a bathroom, and I was just more interested in investing in my own life rather than paying rent to a random stranger,” she said.

The account manager initially looked at Acton, but the one-bedroom flats she saw were, at £550,000 to £600,000, over her budget. She also looked in Charlton and Greenwich.

Then she came across Regency Heights, a Fairview New Homes development in Park Royal. In March, she became the owner of a one-bed flat that cost £350,000. She used Help to Buy to cut down the entry costs of the purchase, and also benefited from the stamp duty holiday.

Landra, who moved to London in 2017, was able to put down a £70,000 deposit after years of careful saving. “The main sacrifices I had to make were living with other people to save on rent and limiting eating out.”

Her mortgage comes in at £500pcm and, even with a monthly service charge of around £120 plus bills, she says she is significantly better off now than she was while sharing a house.

The compromise she had to make was that Park Royal, while more affordable and well-connected to the Tube at Hanger Lane, is a bit of an industrial wasteland with not a lot in the way of shops or restaurants.

“The fact that there was no high street was my main concern, but I am close to central London, and I am okay with it,” she said.

Aside from making saving a regular habit Landra’s key advice for other would-be homeowners is not to forget about essential furnishings. “Plan ahead for furniture delivery,” she said. “I had to sleep on the floor while waiting for my bed to be delivered and my back wasn’t happy about it.”

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