Financing your Home at Graven Hill

Making the most of your budget is one of the keys to success with any home building project – no matter how much you have to spend.

A big benefit of Graven Hill is that this side of the process is simplified, because once your design is locked-down, you’ll know up-front exactly what you’ll be paying for your plot, groundworks and foundations.

That level of cost certainty is difficult to come by on a traditional self-build, and it puts you in a strong position in terms of pinning down your overall budget and understanding your cash flow.

Self build mortgages

While some are able to finance their schemes through savings or equity in a current property, the majority of self builders will need to secure a loan.

High street banks, however, are rarely set up to handle anything but the standard route of purchasing an existing or developer-built house, so you’ll need to seek out a specialist self build mortgage.

Graven Hill has addressed this by inviting a representative of BuildStore, the UK’s leading self build mortgage broker, to give one-to-one advice at the Plot Shop – so you can discuss your financial options early on and get a clear early indication of your budget.

BuildStore created the Accelerator mortgage, which pays out tranches of money in advance of agreed stages of a self-build project, thereby improving cash flow.

It now works with a range of lenders to offer both the Accelerator and arrears stage payment mortgages, so is well-placed to help Graven Hill plot purchasers to identify the best product for their requirements.

Can you build your scheme?

Viability is a hugely important part of the mortgage market, and rightly so. Any lender now has to apply affordability tests before it offers one of its products – whether on a self-build project or the purchase of an existing house.

In addition, a key tenet of the Graven Hill development is that plot buyers won’t end up surrounded by years of ongoing construction work.

Tailored Finish homes can be customised

“To that end, anybody who wants to reserve a self build plot has to get financially qualified by BuildStore first,” says Karen Curtin from Graven Hill.

“We don’t force our buyers to go to a certain financial institution, but we do want to signpost options for finance. If you want to choose a product available through BuildStore, that’s good, but you can also bring in your own mortgage provider.”

Help to Buy

Purchasers considering a Tailored Finish home at Graven Hill, but who face financial constraints, can gain access to support via the Help to Buy scheme.

“This means the government provides them with an equity loan of up to 20% of the cost of their newly built home,” says Karen. “So customers only need a 5% deposit and a 75% mortgage to make up the rest.”

The initiative only applies to completed new homes, so it’s not available for self build plots, where all you’re buying is the land and Golden Brick foundations.

“With the Tailored Finish route, you get a total price for a fully-finished house delivered by Graven Hill, which means you can access Help to Buy,” says Karen.