The Government has created the Help to Buy scheme to help hard-working people like you take steps to buy your own home. Whether you want to get onto the housing ladder or move up it, Help to Buy makes it possible to buy a new-build or existing home priced up to £600,000 with as little as a 5% deposit.
The Help to Buy: equity loan scheme will provide £9.7 billion of additional investment to help people into home ownership. The scheme will help up to 194,000 home buyers, as well as providing a boost to the UK’s construction sector.
The Help to Buy: equity loan is available to all those who aspire to own a new build home that have a 5% deposit but struggle to access or afford the repayments on a low deposit mortgage.
The government will:
The Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee scheme helps people buy a newly built home or an existing property with a deposit of only 5% of the purchase price.
The scheme is open for loans to existing homeowners, as well as first time buyers. The loans are available on new and existing houses with a value of up to £600,000.
The Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee scheme will increase the supply of high loan-to-value mortgages by offering a government guarantee to lenders who provide mortgages to people with a deposit of between 5% and 20%.
The scheme is not available for those wishing to purchase a second home or buy-to-let property and only repayment mortgages are offered under the scheme.
The guarantee protects the lender rather than the borrower against losses. Borrowers remain fully responsible for their mortgage payments and any shortfall in the normal way.
Lenders will pay the government a commercial fee for each mortgage that they guarantee, which covers the expected cost of the scheme for the taxpayer.
See the Help to Buy website for more details on these 2 types of the scheme.
The Help to Buy: NewBuy scheme was launched in March 2013 and it enables all households, not just first time buyers, to buy a new build home with a 5% deposit. The scheme is industry led and is open to all builders and lenders operating in England.
The government also helps social tenants and other first-time buyers to buy a home through shared ownership schemes.
These allow people to buy an initial share of a home and pay rent on the remainder, usually to a housing association. Shared ownership is aimed at first-time buyers who are unable to buy a property suitable for their needs without financial help.
