A MUM has revealed how she is haggling her way onto the property ladder with a button.
Sharon Pavey-Jones has already saved £2,000 after years of struggling to afford a house.
The mum of three shared how she started saving up with just a button.
Sharon began her quest last August, by trading a blue button from her sewing kit for a stapler.
She then swapped the stapler for a violin, which she exchanged for a coffee machine.
Sharon has also received a painting of Exeter Cathedral, a holiday cottage stay and a professional photoshoot.
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The psychotherapy student is now on her eighth swap after bartering the photoshoot for a holiday worth £2,000.
Sharon does not yet have the cash for a house, but hopes to keep bartering items until she has an asset valuable enough to cash in for the cost of a house.
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She said: "I'm thinking outside the box but I can't see another way.
"It's extremely unlikely my family will be able to buy a house in the UK.
"It's virtually impossible to save for a deposit while paying rent and rising bills.
"But it's not a charity. Everyone who swaps with me gets something they want or need.
"They often offer me something they no longer need in exchange, or want the item I have more than the thing they have.
"Bartering has been around for thousands of years."
Sharon came up with the idea after reading about Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian who traded his way from a single red paperclip to a house in 2006.
She plans to copy his success, hoping to nab herself a house in the next two years.
Sharon said: "I'm completely open to whatever comes along, whether that be a flat or a house.
"At the moment I tend to go from one swap to the next and just focus on each one as I go.
"I'd be more than happy with something small and manageable where my children and cats would be happy."
What other schemes are available?
Here are a few other first-time buyer schemes you can take advantage of.
'Mortgage-free' offer
First-time buyers who reserve a new Persimmon home by January 31 can benefit from the company covering up to 10 of their monthly mortgage payments.
The mortgage-free incentive is capped at 5% of the agreed sale price.
For example, if your new home costs £245,000, Persimmon will pay up to £1,225 in your mortgage payments for 10 consecutive months.
This equates to an annual saving of £12,250.
The 5% discount is the maximum that a developer is allowed to contribute to a customer securing a mortgage – so if your house costs more than the average, it may not cover your whole monthly bill.
But be aware that the offer is available on selected developments and plots only.
The scheme is not open to those who purchase a property with a buy-to-let mortgage or those whose property was purchased using the First Homes Scheme or through a Discount Market Sale.
Mortgage guarantee scheme
The mortgage guarantee scheme helps households with 5% deposits purchase their homes.
It enables buyers to take out a mortgage worth 95% loan to value (LTV), meaning only a 5% deposit is needed.
Under the scheme, the Government guarantees part of borrowers' home loans, reducing the risk on the loans.
It means that if the borrower is unable to pay one month, the state will pick up the bill – although it is highly likely there will still be repercussions for borrowers if this happens.
The scheme slashes the minimum amount first-time buyers need to purchase their first homes in half.
For example, a 10% deposit for a £300,00 home is £30,000 but under the programme, buyers would need just £15,000 for a deposit worth 5%.
The scheme runs for properties worth up to £600,000, which would see the minimum deposit required lowered from £60,000 to £30,000.
But while the scheme will help those struggling to scrape a deposit together, buyers will still need to earn a certain amount to be able to borrow a big enough mortgage.
Lenders will typically lend borrowers up to four or five times their salary.
So to buy a £600,000 house with a 5% deposit, you'd need to have a combined income of a minimum of £135,000 a year.
A major downside of these loans, however, is that the interest rates are often considerably higher than you’d pay with a higher LTV mortgage.
Shared ownership
Shared ownership lets first-time buyers purchase a portion of the equity in a property if they can't afford to take out a mortgage for the total value of the home.
You’ll co-own your home with a housing association, which will charge you rent on its portion of the property.
Buyers will find they'll likely need to buy a new-build home.
Buyers must purchase between 10% and 75% of the property to use the initiative, and they can then “staircase” – buy more shares in instalments – until they own 100% of it.
You can put down a deposit of just 5% using a shared ownership scheme.
While it can make buying a home more affordable, there are a few disadvantages.
You don't have as much freedom when it comes to selling up – if you own less than 100%, your housing association will get a set period of time to find a buyer.
That means you won’t be able to accept a higher offer from someone else.
Or, you might have to sell it back to the housing association instead of putting it on the market.
There are also fewer lenders offering shared ownership mortgages compared with standard ones.
This means there isn't much competition to offer decent rates.
Help to Build
The government last year unveiled its Help to Build scheme to first-time buyers.
It means you're able to build your own home with just a 5% deposit.
The government can give you an equity loan based on the estimated costs to buy the plot of land and build your home.
The loan amount can be between 5% to 20%, and up to 40% in London.
It will make building your own home more affordable, as previously, you needed a deposit worth around 25% of land and building costs.
With a home costing £400,000 to build, you would need to raise £100,000 typically. At 5% this would be just £20,000.
But there are some downsides.
Building costs can often run away – which means you could go over budget and end up forking out much more than you want to.
It could also be challenging to find land to buy and build on – including the faff of getting planning and a mortgage.
Companies offering loans with 5% deposits
There are companies offering loans to first-time buyers with just 5% deposits to help them boost their home budget
If you have saved up enough for a 5% deposit, you can apply for a home loan from Proportunity.
It works in a similar way to Help to Buy – but the key differences are that you can get a loan to cover up to 25% of the total value of a property, and it doesn’t have to be a new build.
You can repay your loan at any point – for example, you could choose to pay it back at all once when you sell up.
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Ahauz is another company offering equity loans to buyers with a 5% deposit.
Again, you can get up to 25% of the property value up to £150,000.
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