London house prices: Mayor of London Sadiq Khan invests £25m in Pocket Living to build homes for first-time buyers
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is investing £25m into Pocket Living, a developer which uses modular construction to build affordable homes.
The investment will help Pocket create 1,059 new one- and two-bed flats for first-time buyers. It sells its homes at 20 per cent below the market rate to first-time buyers living in the borough.
Pocket specialises in building homes quickly on small sites throughout the capital; the firm can build 32 flats in ten days.
Read more: Watch: How to build a housing development in ten days
The flats are entirely assembled off-site; the electrical wiring, appliances, and windows are all fitted in a factory. The assembled homes are then transported into the capital and craned into place at the building site.
However, the homes are highly over-subscribed, with around 10 applicants for every home on offer.
Khan said: “The housing crisis is the biggest challenge facing Londoners today and I have been honest from the start that we won’t be able to turn things around overnight. For decades, we have simply not built enough new and affordable homes in the capital, meaning that for too many Londoners the dream of buying their own home is getting further out of reach.”