Online House Hunter: Under Starter’s Orders

Under starter's orders: For the race to join the property market

THE government has released more details of its much-heralded £250m First Buy scheme to help first-time buyers onto the property ladder.

It was announced by George Osborne in his March Budget and aims to help those who can’t afford the deposit normally needed for a mortgage. Rather ironically, it is only for new-build homes – a sector of the market frequently looked on with disdain by mortgage lenders. The other restriction is that your joint income needs to be less than £60,000.

According to Directgov: “Under the First Buy scheme, the government and the housebuilders will jointly provide a 20 per cent loan to top up first-time buyers’ own deposit of 5 per cent. This will allow them to take out a mortgage for 75 per cent of the property. Loans will be free of charge for the first five years and repaid when the property is resold. The funds will then be recycled to fund more homes for the scheme.”

The first homes under the scheme should come on line in September and funds will be recycled (when the home is sold or the loan repaid) into First Buy.

Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes and other developers are quickly updating their websites with news about the FirstBuy scheme to hopefully capture some of the 10,000 families wanting to buy a home.

Some may be sceptical as to how much ‘good news’ the Budget announcement really was for the housing market but spare a thought for the person sitting on the domain name firstbuy.co.uk – that Mr Osborne chose the name First Buy for the scheme was certainly good news. And not surprisingly, the domain is now up for sale: form an orderly queue.

USEFUL LINKS

• Our online property search
• Directgov First Buy statement
• BBC mortgage calculator
• National House-Building Council
• Council of Mortgage Lenders
• Online House Hunter: First Steps

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