Buy-to-let
Over 35,000 aspiring homeowners have been helped onto the property ladder through the government’s Help to Buy scheme.
T
he housing minister Kris Hopkins said the scheme is not only helping people buy their own home but also boosting house building and creating jobs in construction.
Launched 14 months ago, the latest figures show that 22,831 people have bought newly-built homes through the Help to Buy: equity loan scheme.
There have also been 7,313 sales through the Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee and 5,173 sales through the Help to Buy: NewBuy scheme.
All sales through Help to Buy: equity loan and three-quarters of overall sales through all elements of Help to Buy are new-build properties.
The impact on overall housing transaction is small as Help to Buy accounts for around 3 per cent of overall house sales. But what the scheme has done is to give a boost to house building, which is up a third compared to last year and is at its highest level since 2007. In the last 12 months 216,000 planning permissions were granted.
Nationally, 86 per cent of Help to Buy: equity loan sales were to first-time buyers, while the average house price under the scheme was £206,084 – far lower than the £252,000 average house price. The vast majority of Help to Buy: equity loan sales – 94 per cent – are outside London.
Kris Hopkins said: “In 2010 we inherited a broken housing market, where hard-working people who could afford a mortgage were locked out of home ownership because they couldn’t get the deposit together.
“Help to Buy is changing that – to date, this scheme has enabled 35,000 people buy their own place with a fraction of the deposit they would normally require.”
