Urban Splash Brings Love Back to Tower Blocks with Affordable Flats

"The key to marketing to first time buyers is having a fantastic affordable scheme, having clear and exciting marketing materials and then getting them out through the right media," said Nicola Wallis, sales director, Urban Splash. "Our advertising drives people to our website, we then can communicate with them through email, sms text messages and telephone but essentially it is about meeting purchasers face to face and taking time to go through the process so they fully understand what they need to do and by when."

Urban Splash will open a sales office and show home in Sylvia a week before people can actually buy one of the FTBI homes to give qualified purchasers the chance to see the apartments and to also talk through the process with the sales team. Local people will be given priority with a separate sales release taking place the week before the public launch.

Urban Splash will provide a bank of solicitors and Independent Financial Advisors to assist purchasers with the ins and outs of buying a house.

The Scheme

Sylvia is the last of 3 former council tower blocks being converted into apartments. It is located on Dalton Street just off Rochdale Road, about 5 minutes from Manchester City Centre.

Following a competition, the towers have been named after the Pankhurst Family, Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia, the three Mancunian women instrumental to the suffragette movement. 

On the outside, the former grey panels are replaced with bright wooden cladding and new floor to ceiling height windows replace the former small balconies. This provides great views over Manchester city centre and the surrounding countryside.

The three towers are very close to the River Irk and Irk Valley which is a rare piece of greenery in Manchester city centre populated with wildlife and walks.

Internally Sylvia has 63 apartments with 14 two bedroom corner flats (699 sq ft) and 46 one bedroom flats (from 462-607 sq ft). There are 5 flats on each of the 12 floors and 3 ground floor apartments offering private garden spaces.

The flats come complete with a retro style kitchen, fully fitted bathroom, timber flooring to the living room and kitchen areas with carpet in the bedrooms.

"Urban Splash believes the flats in Sylvia are ideally suited to first time buyers," said Nicola Wallis, sales director, Urban Splash. "They have great views over Manchester and the countryside, and are just a short walk from the city centre."

To register interest in Sylvia please visit http://www.urbansplash.co.uk/ or call 0333 666 9999. Prices will be available in March. 

Award winning property developer Urban Splash has successfully targeted first time buyers and key workers at its upside down terraced houses scheme, Chimney Pot Park at Langworthy, Salford and is about to embark on a new campaign for Sylvia, a tower block in Manchester.

Chimney Pot Park was selected by national regeneration agency English Partnerships as one of four – and the only one in the north – schemes to pilot the First Time Buyers Initiative (FTBI). The 91 available houses went on sale in June 2007 and were all sold to first time buyers within a month.

About FTBI

English Partnerships' First Time Buyers Initiative is part of the Government's Homebuy scheme to help 120,000 people into home ownership through a range of affordable options. It enables eligible first time buyers to contribute a minimum 50 per cent towards the full purchase price of a new home through an affordable mortgage, with English Partnerships contributing the rest.

First time buyers can then ‘staircase' to repay English Partnerships contribution at any time, and after three years, will start to pay a fee to English Partnerships based on the contribution made. When owners sell their FTBI home, they will repay all of the assistance from a share of the total sale proceeds. So, if the FTBI assistance was a 25% contribution, the repayment will be 25% of the total value when it is sold.

As the developer of the project, Urban Splash took the lead in marketing the 91 houses available through FTBI for Chimney Pot Park. 

The application process was carried out by Plumlife, the organisation appointed by the government to administrate FTBI for Chimney Pot Park on its behalf. Plumlife will do the same for Sylvia.

"We want to make the process as straight forward as possible for people buying through the First Time Buyers Initiative," said Nicola Wallis, director of sales, Urban Splash. "As buying your first home is one of the biggest decisions of your life, to be able to offer more people the opportunity to do that through schemes like FTBI is fantastic. At Urban Splash we want people to enjoy living in our homes and FTBI is proving a great success at helping first time buyers on to the property ladder."

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