At Pocket we are all about helping city makers into homeownership, which is why we have partnered with home buying experts FirstHomeCoach to bring you the best property purchasing information to get financially fit and in the optimal position to buy your first home.
FirstHomeCoach have developed a freehandy appto help you on your journey to homeownership. The app is designed to inform and get you more prepared to buy your first home. This includes tips on improving your credit score, boosting your savings and exploring alternative types of properties to buy.
You can access all the information you need to help in your decision making and can connect with trusted advisers.
They have incorporated useful tools to help you get more prepared,
And the best thing is you can get it all done IN ONE PLACE.
At Pocket we love London. We love it’s vibrancy. That’s why it’s so disappointing to see report after report warning the capital that, the people that make it such an exciting place to live, want to leave.
“Londoners are almost unanimous in their belief that London ranks worse than elsewhere on both the affordability and the availability of housing. For the average London resident, housing affordability and housing availability are the indicators on which London performs worst.”
This is a direct quote from the Vibrant Capital report by Grant Thornton.
The urban commentator and Harvard lecturer Ed Glaeser has commented that the continued success of cities relies on a simple equation, that the cultural and commercial richness of the city must benefit inhabitants more than the downside of living in close proximity and sharing so much with others. The Grant Thornton report shows that amongst all groups researched, valued the cultural and leisure benefits of living in London alongside it’s diversity and benefits to pay and career. For too many however, these benefits are outweighed by the challenges of finding affordable and secure housing that meets their needs.
As a city, we have to move faster to help these largely young aspiring Londoners resolve their housing issues. At Pocket, we hear the stories from this audience constantly. They have been frustrated by the housing situation that they find themselves in and can’t see any way out of it. The cost of living swallows up their incomes so significantly that the prospect of ever owning a home is a distant dream. Furthermore, these costs deny them access to so much of the culture and fun that the city should provide. The equation that Ed Glaeser talks of, no longer makes sense and for a highly mobile workforce, who have never seen their career as a single “job for life”, leaving the Capital is increasingly the only answer.
Our first scheme in Kingston has been designed by the RIBA Stirling Prize winner Haworth Tompkins. Best known for their stunning Stirling Prize-winning Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, we are thrilled to be working with them on our smaller, but no less stunning, residential scheme near the town centre of Kingston-upon-Thames.
Providing 21 one bedroom Pocket homes and 5 two bedoom Pocket Edition homes, Cowleaze Road KT2 will be an intimate and stable community of local home owners. We spoke to the team at Haworth Tompkins about the background to the site and their ideas for the building:
It’s unusual for a building to have a matching set of mugs. Then again, Mapleton Crescent SW18 isn’t your typical building. Tall, green and slender, its façade will shimmer with bespoke green-glazed terracotta tiles. These tiles were designed with the help of Loraine Rutt, our consultant ceramicist, working closely with architects Metropolitan Workshop.
Loraine is a fine art ceramicist and we spoke to her to find out more about her involvement in the project – and why she was inspired to make a limited range of mugs to celebrate the building.
“When architects Metropolitan Workshop proposed a terracotta façade for Mapleton Crescent SW18, they asked me to advise on creating a glaze that would feel ‘handmade’, rather than factory-produced, bringing a human scale to this tall building. They wanted to give life and movement to the building that would catch the eye of locals and residents, and continue looking good with minimal maintenance.” Read More
Our latest city makers have moved in at Sail Street and Juxon Street SE11, North Lambeth
We’re so proud of our latest schemes in the Borough of Lambeth, Sail Street and Juxon Street SE11, which between them have provided 70 new homes to local city makers. Built on the edge of the China Walk estate using the latest modular construction technology, they’re a handsome pair.
It’s a bit like seeing a building undressed on site today at Mapleton Crescent SW18. The last few pods are being craned in, before our green goddess puts her clothes on – a fetching set of green tiles.
Stunning new Hackney scheme for 29 local first time buyers
Rosina Street E9 was designed by Hackney-based Waugh Thistleton Architects, and completed in March 2017. The Pocket flats were sold at a 20% discount to the surrounding market and the building is now home to 29 local first time buyers. It’s the second Pocket Living scheme in Hackney, and it’s one we’re especially proud of – when you look at these photos, you’ll see why!
It’s the first day of Spring, and for the first time in what seems like months, London’s city makers are starting to think about spending time outside again.
So it’s great timing that our gorgeous new buildings in North Lambeth, Sail and Juxon St SE11, have outside space to suit all residents.
When you walk through the covered entrance at Juxon St SE11, you enter a wonderful walled courtyard garden with benches underlit by LEDs and pretty young trees. It will be a great place for residents to meet, mingle and hang out.
Pocket Living was delighted to receive planning permission from Haringey council last week, for our most ambitious scheme to date, West Green Place N17.
This allows us to deliver 98 Pocket homes, which will be available to local first time buyers at a 20% discount, establishing another strong community of owner occupiers. West Green Place will also include with a new community centre for the benefit of the whole local community .