First-time Buyer
Equity loan arm of Help to Buy extended to 2020
The Help to Buy equity loan scheme will be extended to 2020, Chancellor George Osborne has announced, with a further investment of £6bn.
The scheme was originally due to come to an end in 2016.
Some 120,000 additional homes are expected to be built under the extended scheme, Osborne told the BBC.
“The key part of economic security is the security of being able to afford your own home,” Osborne told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.
“Our Help to Buy scheme has helped people into homes and has helped build new homes, but I want to extend the Help to Buy scheme for newly built houses which was going to end in 2016 for the rest of the decade.”
Help to Buy has has come under fire recently for artificially increasing property prices.
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Under the equity loan part of the scheme, the government backs potential homeowners with a 20 percent loan on new-build properties worth up to £600,000, opening the property ladder to those with deposits as small as five percent.
The mortgage guarantee part of the Help to Buy scheme will not be affected.
The Chancellor also set out plans for a major new development around the high speed rail station in Ebbsfleet, Kent.
£200m has been earmarked to build 15,000 new homes on former industrial sites and a former quarry.
The “Garden City” Development Corporation has a mandate to build spacious, attractive, high quality homes modelled on popular garden cities like Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City.
Osborne said: “This means more homes, more aspiration for families and economic security and economic resilience. Britain has got to get building.”
Aldermore Bank’s managing director of residential mortgages, Charles Haresnape, welcomed the Help to Buy extension.
He said: “An extension of Help To Buy to the end of the decade is good news for first time buyers who continue to struggle with deposit raising as house prices rise. This demonstrates that the government believes this is sustainable and not inflationary.”