Help to Buy assists 20,000 in its first year as house prices dip for March
As I feared this article points to the price raising impact this scheme is having on the housing market. Until supply is improved there is no light at the end of the tunnel for those in search of rural affordable housing.
Almost 20,000 homebuyers bought new-build properties worth a total of £4bn assisted in the first year of the government’s Help to Buy scheme, figures showed on Wednesday, as the latest Land Registry data showed a dip in house prices in March.
In the first 12 months of the scheme, 19,394 properties were bought with an interest-free loan from the government, of which 87.5% were first-time buyers. The median loan was £36,999 and the median price paid for a property was £184,995.
The loans are available on properties costing up to £600,000, and the department for communities and local government said 163 properties costing between £500,001 and the limit had been bought using Help to Buy funding.
A further 1,056 costing more than £350,000 have been bought, but the largest group of sales is in the £150,001 to £200,000 bracket, where 6,196 purchases involved equity loans.
There is no limit on income to qualify for the Help to Buy scheme and, while 82% of buyers had a household income of £60,000 or less, 583 had household earnings in excess of £100,000.