We live on Britain’s cheapest housing estate… we bought our homes for £1 – our favourite feature saves us hundreds

RESIDENTS who bought their homes for £1 on Britain's cheapest housing estate have revealed how they are saving hundreds.

Lucky locals took advantage of the scheme where they can snap up a property for just a pound on the £34million Marches estate in Wolverhampton.

(Residents on 'Britain's cheapest estate' are loving life in their new homes.Credit: Roland Leon)

(Resident Kristine Kromane is happy with the scheme and her reduced energy bills.Credit: Roland Leon)

(Rachel Reade and her two sons are also enjoying living in the £1 homes.Credit: Roland Leon)

(Residents can purchase the homes after renting for 25 years.Credit: Roland Leon)

The development is selling two, three and four bedroom homes under a help-to-buy scheme, which then allows residents to purchase them after renting for 25 years.

As part of their plans they can build up a loyalty premium, and then buy their home for £1.

And although the scheme sounded "too good to be true", residents say the reality is even better than they’d hoped for.

Kristine Kromane, 42, moved into a two-bedroom home with her husband just over a year ago.

She said: "When we saw this offer, we could not believe our luck. I put in the applications and they approved them within three hours. The next day we put down a deposit.

"We still pay rent and it has gone up from £800 to £850-a-month which is a little bit more than we paid before, but it is our home and in a great location.

As the rest of the country battles the cost-of-living crisis, Kristine says locals have seen their rents rise well below inflation as well as lower energy bills.

The happy local continued: "Our cost of living has actually gone down because of the electric and gas bills.

"But even though we work from home with laptops running, in summer we are only paying £10-a-month for electricity because of all the solar panels they built on the roof.

"Altogether now we pay about £780 for a whole year of gas and £320 for electricity. It is a huge saving."

The idea of the scheme - sponsored by Wolverhampton Council - was to provide the chance of home ownership to those locked out of the system by years of falling wages and rising house prices.

Those moving in have a two-year snag cover guarantee and a 10-year guarantee on the building works.

Ref: We live on Britain’s cheapest housing estate… we bought our homes for £1 – our favourite feature saves us hundreds (thesun)