New figures released today (Monday 28 January) show that there have been 12,875 sales of newly built properties through the Help to Buy equity loan, with a further 6,446 sales in the pipeline.
Overall the figures also show there are over 22,000 new homes reserved through the scheme, said Housing Minister Kris Hopkins. He added that it is a sign of how the scheme is helping both aspiring home owners, but also the wider construction industry as more homes are built in response to this growing demand.
He also pointed out that aspiring home owners have been helped across the country. Leeds has the highest number of sales with 230 through the scheme since April, while Wiltshire, Central Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Manchester complete the top five areas.
Across the 32 London boroughs there were 810 Help to Buy sales, some 6% of overall sales in the capital and around 90% of sales of newly built homes through Help to Buy were to first time buyers.
Hopkins welcomed the wider impact on the construction industry that the Help to Buy scheme is having, with leading developers pledging to build more as a direct result of it. On top of this over 1,200 house builders have registered to participate in the scheme of which 94% are small and medium sized businesses.
And just last week the minister visited the Hanson’s Claughton Manor brickworks in Lancaster, a site that had been mothballed in 2009 but has now reopened in response to a surge in demand for bricks, thanks in part to Help to Buy.
The Help to Buy equity loan scheme enables people to buy a newly built home with a deposit of at least 5% of the property price, while the government offers a loan of up to 20%. The rest is covered by a mortgage.
This scheme also complements the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme which has helped open up the mortgage market and enables people to buy with a mortgage of up to 95% of the property’s value, by offering a guarantee on part of the loan to the lender. Since its launch in November, more than 6,000 aspiring home owners have put offers on homes through the mortgage guarantee.
‘I’m delighted that through the Help to Buy scheme, we’ve helped thousands of hard-working people realise their dream of becoming home owners, getting onto the property ladder using this valuable alternative to the Bank of Mum and Dad,’ said Hopkins.
‘But the Help to Buy scheme offers more than that because each home sold is a new build, we’re also getting Britain building, with workers returning to sites across the country and helping bring house building to its highest levels since 2007,’ he added.
