Help to Buy creates 4,000 new homeowners

Over 35,000 aspiring homeowners have been helped onto the property ladder through the Government’s Help to Buy schemes, including 3,941 in the South West, Kris Hopkins announced yesterday.

The Minister welcomed the key role this scheme is playing in the Government’s long-term economic plan, both helping people buy their own home but also boosting housebuilding and creating jobs in construction.

New figures today show that since the launch of Help to Buy 14 months ago, 2,871 people have bought newly-built homes through the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme.

There have also been 599 sales through the Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee and 471 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. 

Since the launch of the scheme, housebuilding is up a third compared to last year, while 216,000 planning permissions were granted in the last 12 months.

Recent estimates still show that Help to Buy accounts for just three per cent of overall house sales.

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.

Housing Minister 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.

“And with housebuilding up a third over the past year, it’s clearly having a wider impact, getting workers back on construction sites and building the homes communities want and need.”