The UK Government’s Help to Buy schemes have been generally regarded as a good thing for the property market, helping first time buyers get on the housing ladder, but in London it is hard to do so.
New research shows that in a quarter of London boroughs, as the scheme only applies to homes priced at up to £600,000 in the capital, first time buyers cannot qualify if they want to live in these locations.
The report from independent London estate agents James Pendleton points out that currently not a single house below the £600,000 threshold can be found for sale in the boroughs of Camden, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets and Westminster.
Instead, buyers are forced to either limit their property search to flats or look further afield.
In Barking, Lewisham and Southwark there are just three houses for sale in each borough below the threshold, while there are four each in Greenwich and Wandsworth.
Indeed London wide there are just 603 homes for sale that would qualify for the Help to Buy schemes with 59 of them in Croydon and 57 in Richmond upon Thames and there are 13,156 new build houses for sale above the £600,000 threshold, which the report says highlights the severe shortage of appropriate properties being built for families in London.
In fact, houses make up just 2.7% of London’s new build property stock below £600,000, with one and two bedroom flats accounting for the majority of the market.
‘We know that house prices are overinflated in parts of the capital, but this research really highlights the scale of London’s property crisis for families. It shows that, for those among them who need a leg up, a quarter of the capital is off limits,’ said the firm’s director Lucy Pendleton.
‘With houses making up such a small proportion of London’s new build property stock below the Help to Buy threshold, the reality is that families will be forced to stay in cramped and uncomfortable accommodation. This is a hammer blow for a key demographic who desperately need the room and outside space a house can provide but have to fight tooth a nail to secure a property in the right area, if any are available at all,’ she pointed out.
‘Mass extinction of Help To Buy houses has begun, exacerbated by the upper threshold which hasn’t moved in four years, and contagion across the rest of London is inevitable,’ she added.
