MICRO-HOME
First-time buyer spends £285k on London flat that has LESS floor space than a Tube carriage
Lissa Cardell's Croydon flat is just 31 square metres in area - 14 square metres smaller than a Tube carriage
A FIRST-TIME buyer has sacrificed space to live in a tiny flat the same size as a Jubilee Line train carriage to get on the property ladder.
Lissa Cardell, 32, has been living in on the outskirts of London in her £285,000 micro-home for a year now even though it's only 31 square meters.
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It's just one of the 7,800 tiny converted office space flats built across the UK in 2017 and are part of London Mayor Sadiq Khan's plan to inject the capital with 116,000 affordable homes by 2022.
Lissa, who's originally from Dorset, was "shocked" at the size when she first saw it but felt like it was her only option to buying a place without having to move out of London.
The one-bed Croydon flat designed by cost nearly £30,000 less than a normal sized flat in the area because of its reduced space.
It measures 8 square metres less than the minimum space standard guidelines set by the Government and 18 square metres smaller than the average.
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But to get planning permission for living spaces smaller than the guidelines, the flats have to be high spec, such as including a smart heating system and fully-fitted kitchen.
The size means Lissa's had to adapt to a "streamlined lifestyle", cutting back on clutter and owning nothing that she doesn't use because there's simply not enough room for storage.
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It took Lissa, who works in cinema sponsorship, seven years to save the £13,000 deposit while she continued to rent in London. She also used a £114,000 Help To Buy loan.
This week in the My First Home series, we caught up with Lissa to find out how she uses smart furniture to survive living in a small space and if she feels that scaling back the size of her home was worth it.
Where do you live and when did you buy your first home?
I bought my micro-flat in Croydon in October 2017 so I've been living here for about a year now.
It's a small one-bed flat with an open plan kitchen and living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and a balcony.
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It's a block of 82 new-build flats and it's right on the high street and close to the train station which is easy for me to get to work.
Okay, how small is it really?
People gasp when they come into the flat for the first time, when they see how small it really is.
When I looked around it in May that year, I'd prepared myself that it was going to be small but I was shocked when I saw it. It's tiny.
At first, I really wasn't sure that I could live in such a small space. I had to get my head around it.
Even though I really liked it, I had to get my mum to come around with me for a second time to see what she thought.
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I went for a viewing on my own in the morning and a second one in the afternoon with my mum.
We decided that the space was enough for one person and I put down the £500 holding deposit on the same day.
I love entertaining and having people over for dinner and I can still get four people comfortably round the table - I've even had six over for dinner but that was a bit of a squash.
If it didn't have the balcony though I think I'd struggle.
How much did you pay and what's your mortgage?
My budget was around £290,000 and I bought the flat for just under that at £285,000.
I also took out a £114,000 Help To Buy loan which was worth 40 per cent of the property value.
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I put down around a 7 per cent deposit which was £13,000 and took out a two-year fixed-rate mortgage with Skipton Building Society for £158,000.
I pay £475 on my mortgage every month which is almost half of what I was paying to rent a room in London.
To be honest, I've not really got a huge plan of how I'm going to pay back the loan.
I'll probably just keep it and pay the interest on it after the five-year interest free bit is over and pay it back when I come to sell the house.
How did you manage to save?
I've been saving to buy a flat ever since I first moved to London about seven or eight years ago.
It wasn't always much because I was always renting so sometimes it would only be around £50 a month.
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As I began to earn more as I progressed in my job I was able to put aside a bit more, but living in London is expensive and it's so hard to save if you're not prepared to do nothing.
I'm lucky because in my job I can get a bonus every quarter so whenever I got one I'd put it straight into savings.
By the time it came to buy, I had about £14,000 to cover the deposit and fees.
How about furnishing it? And can you fit all of your stuff in it?
I'd always lived in furnished flats before so I didn't have any of my own furniture before I moved.
Luckily, I didn't have to buy any white goods or anything as they were already in the flat and it's all super high-spec which was one of the appeals of this place.
Storage in the flat is not great, so I had to find furniture that can double up as a place to put my stuff.
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I've got a bed that lifts up so that you can fit things in it and a footstool in the living room that does the same.
They were expensive so I had to borrow the money for them from my mum and dad but I was able to pay them back within a couple of months of moving in.
Other than that though, I haven't really bought anything new - not even things like photo frames and plants - because there's just no room for it.
You have to live a very streamlined life and scaling everything back because there's just no room for clutter like there is in a normal flat. I use everything that's in it.
I had to go through an aggressive month-long process of binning loads of things before moving in - there just isn't room to hold on to things that might be useful in the future.
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Is it worth living somewhere so small if it means getting your own house?
I think it's worth it. I'd been saving for so long I guess it's just how much you're willing to compromise on to own your own place. For me, I figured I could give up the space.
I'd also had enough of renting. I was renting a two bed place in Streatham with my friend which cost us £750 a month plus bills and council tax on top.
Our landlord decided to sell the property and although we could stay there, we were going to have to pay a load of fees to change the contracts and I just didn't want to.
I was looking at a few one-bed places in South London but I knew realistically I'd have to move further out which I wasn't keen on.
MY FIRST HOME
That's when I found this place which is in a good location with good connections and I could afford it so it made sense.
I’d like to stay for a couple of years but it's not somewhere where I’d like to live for much longer than that.
It's enough to get you on the property ladder and I’d recommend it because it's completely my own.
It's a great option for people looking to buy on their own and it's really sociable because everyone else living in the block is around the same age.
What help is out there for first-time buyers?
GETTING on the property ladder can feel like a daunting task but there are schemes out there to help first-time buyers have their own home.
Help to Buy Isa - It's a tax-free savings account where for every £200 you save, the Government will add an extra £50. But there's a maximum limit of £3,000 which is paid to your solicitor when you move.
Help to Buy equity loan - The Government will lend you up to 20 per cent of the home's value - or 40 per cent in London - after you've put down a five per cent deposit. The loan is on top of a normal mortgage but it can only be used to buy a new build property.
Lifetime Isa - This is another Government scheme that gives anyone aged 18 to 39 the chance to save tax-free and get a bonus of up to £32,000 towards their first home. You can save up to £4,000 a year and the Government will add 25 per cent on top.
Shared ownership - Co-owning with a housing association means you can buy a part of the property and pay rent on the remaining amount. You can buy anything from 25 to 75 per cent of the property but you're restricted to specific ones.
"First dibs" in London - London Mayor Sadiq Khan is working on a scheme that will restrict sales of all new-build homes in the capital up to £350,000 to UK buyers for three months before any overseas marketing can take place.
Starter Home Initiative - A Government scheme that will see 200,000 new-build homes in England sold to first-time buyers with a 20 per cent discount by 2020. To receive updates on the progress of these homes you can register your interest on the website.
What is Pocket living all about? Watch to find out how & why we make our first time buyer homes for city makers in London
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