The number of people buying a home through the Help to Buy scheme is at an all-time high.
New figures released on 13 August 2021 show that from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 over 55,000 households bought their home with the support of a Help to Buy: equity loan.
That makes it a record-breaking year for the scheme, which has helped 328,506 households to purchase a home since it was introduced on 1 April 2013.
In total, the value of these equity loans has reached over £20 billion, with the value of properties sold under the scheme going past the £90 billion mark.
The scheme helps first-time buyers in England onto the housing ladder by providing a loan to put towards the cost of buying a newly built home.
You can borrow a minimum of 5% and up to a maximum of 20% (40% in London) of the full purchase price of a new-build home.
Holly Roberts, 27, is one of the thousands of people who have benefitted from the scheme over the past year having recently purchased a property in Poole, Dorset.
Holly said:
“It feels really good to have my own home, I just love having my own place and knowing that I did that through my own hard work.
“I wouldn’t have been able to get on the housing ladder without Help to Buy. That equity loan just helped me bridge the gap between what I could borrow from a mortgage and the sort of prices I was looking at around this area.
“I would recommend help to buy to other people. I genuinely think it is such a good government scheme.”
Anyone interested in buying a home through the Help to Buy scheme should visit the scheme’s webpage. There you’ll find more information on the steps to take to buy your first home, including instructions on how to apply and contact details for Help to Buy agents in your area.
This page was written by MHCLG’s home buying & selling team. It typically takes around six months to buy and move into a new home. The precise amount of time taken will vary from person to person and depend on a number of factors including; whether the buyer also has a home to sell, whether the buyer is purchasing a new build […]
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