THE Jersey Development Company is working on a support package to help first-time buyers concerned about losing deposits on apartments they secured years before the recent mortgage rate rise.
The company’s chief executive, Lee Henry, has attempted to reassure worried Islanders that they will still be able to move into their new homes when the first phase of Horizon East at the Waterfront is ready in mid-January, despite the jump in interest rates and current turbulence in the property market.
Mr Henry said: ‘The situation is unprecedented. We haven’t experienced this turmoil in the property market before in Jersey, with the interest rates rising so dramatically.’
He added: ‘We want to support the original purchasers to ensure they are able to complete on their homes.
‘Our focus is on the first-time buyers in this regard, but we’re inviting purchasers to contact us so that we can support them. The exact detail of the support package is being worked up at the moment.’
He said that the JDC’s board held an initial meeting last week and added that by the end of this week they would ‘have decided which of the options will go forward’.
‘We are working with mortgage lenders and the banks to get these over the line as close to 13 January as we can,’ he explained.
Mr Henry confirmed the value of Horizon properties had risen by up to 40% since the deposits were taken from the end of 2017 to early 2020, and said that the company was keen to see the original buyers complete their sales and would provide a package of measures to help them.
The States-owned arms-length organisation wrote to the buyers of Horizon East properties recently to confirm that they were liaising with mortgage companies and banks, as well as the customers’ legal advisers.
The project suffered delays caused by Covid-19 and significant labour shortages, he said, but 26 extra decorators, floor layers and electricians had been sourced from the UK and Portugal in the past month to ensure the first phase of Horizon was ready for completion on 13 January next year. There are three Horizon buildings – named East, South and West – comprising 280 apartments in total.
Horizon East contains 108 apartments, of which all but one was pre-sold.
