Hope for potential house buyers?
Let's take a look at the new Help to Buy scheme promising to help with buying your first home or moving to a new home.
This scheme allows for 95% mortgages and some of the UK's top banks including Halifax, RBS and Natwest have signed up so far.
Key features of Help to Buy
Borrowers will be able to take out a mortgage with a 5% deposit on homes with a value below £600,000. The Government will guarantee a further 15% of your potential property's loan, making mortgage lenders happy with your effective 20% deposit.
Who is Help to Buy for?
This is a great scheme for helping potential and current homeowners as this scheme is not only available to first time buyers.
The scheme is not open to buy-to-let investors, it is just for first time buyers and current home owners. Why current home owners? Even if someone is already on the property ladder, they may need to move from a result of an expanding family for example but be stuck without the huge deposit required to upscale or trapped by negative equity.
Criticism of Help to Buy
The scheme has been criticised as creating a potential for a housing bubble, particularly in London and the South East. We must, however, think outside of the South East of England as well as people struggling to afford the larger deposits now needed since the housing market fell in 2007. Also, mortgage experts say lenders will only have 'limited stocks' of mortgage products to sell so will prevent a flood of sales.
The Government has pledged £12 Billion towards the scheme which will last for three years until 2017. RBS and Natwest aim to lend to 25,000 buyers.
What do you think?
Will this help you take the leap to buy your first home or finally find the larger property you've needed for a while? Are you worried this will inflate house prices even further? How do you think your location in England and Wales affects your attitude for the scheme?
