Yet these customers often find it difficult to access the funding they need to make this a reality.

As specialists in this market, here at Together we’ve recently allocated £100m of funds to lend to council and housing association tenants that are eligible to buy their properties at a discounted price under the Right to Buy scheme. 

We’ve offered Right to Buy mortgages for over 12 years and have extensive experience in helping tenants buy their council property. However, following the government’s decision to extend Right to Buy eligibility to include some housing associations through a pilot programme that is expected to eventually be rolled out nationally, we’re dedicating more funding to serve this growing number of Right to Buy qualifying consumers.  

The discounts available are up to 70%, so the potential long-term gain is considerable. However, even in the short term, we’ve found that in many cases the loan repayments are less than the previous rent, so the customer is immediately better off. 

We’ve identified various key regions, based on council and housing association stock, where we believe we’ll see demand for Right to Buy products, including London, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, so we’ll be working with our broker partners across these regions to ensure that eligible customers know that funding is available.

Serving markets that have been underserved by other lenders is very much our niche and Right to Buy is a good example of this. We’ll consider properties that mainstream lenders wouldn’t usually lend on, including high-rise flats, and offer a range of products to suit different needs; including both capital repayment and interest-only options.  

Our Right to Buy customers can benefit from our new five-year fixed mortgage, with no early repayment charges, which will give them peace of mind that their payments will be fixed for that period, and we’ll also accept many different income sources, such as employed, self-employed, DWP benefits and pensions and always apply our commonsense approach.

To find out more visit: www.togethermoney.com/right-to-buy-mortgage-lenders