NewBuy to Deliver 25,000 Not 100,000 Homes

Housebuilders will only be able to deliver up to 25,000 homes for sale through the government’s flagship NewBuy mortgage guarantee scheme, rather than the 100,000 homes ministers have previously claimed.  Launched by the prime minister in March, NewBuy was designed to help first-time buyers afford new-build homes.  David Cameron said it would kickstart housebuilding by enabling up to 100,000 extra homes to be built - a figure consistently repeated by ministers.  But it has now emerged the Home Builder’s Federation, which runs the scheme, expects an upper limit of 25,000 homes to be sold. Housebuilders have claimed demand for NewBuy mortgages has been limited by lenders’ high interest rates of about 6%.  The news comes after the first official figures for the scheme showed for the period from 12 March to 30 June just 250 homes had been sold.  Read more on the Building website.