Help to Buy Creates 131 New Homeowners A Day

The Help to Buy schemes have created 131 new homeowners every day since April 2013, says Housing Minister Brandon Lewis. Mr Lewis said the figures show Help to Buy is an important part of the government’s efforts to ensure anyone that works hard and aspires to own their own home has the opportunity to do so. Since the launch of the schemes, over 100,000 people have used the Help to Buy equity loan, mortgage guarantee and NewBuy schemes at a fraction of the deposit they would normally require. Four out of the 5 of these were first-time buyers – and 94% of the sales were outside of London. Read more on the CLG website.

Help To Buy Sales Hit 73,000

The number of people joining the housing ladder continues to grow as new figures show more than 73,000 homes have been bought under the government’s Help to Buy schemes.  With housebuilding at its highest level since 2007, Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said the figures demonstrated how the schemes were getting the country building, as part of the government’s long-term economic plan. The figures include:

·         38,052 households helped into new build homes under the Help to Buy (equity loan) scheme

·         of these 83% are first time buyers (31,640) rising to 94% outside London 

·         30,269 households buying new and existing homes through Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee

·         5,518 households supported into a new build home through the NewBuy scheme

Read more on the CLG website.

Newbuy Housing Scheme Is A 95 Per Cent Failure

A coalition plan to get 100,000 people on to the property ladder by helping them buy new-build properties has actually helped just over 5,000 individuals, official figures have revealed. The Government's NewBuy scheme involves guaranteeing mortgages for first-time buyers who have a deposit as small as 5 per cent. When it was introduced, ministers pledged it would help 100,000 people to buy a home. But so far only 5,518 have benefited from the scheme, the Government's own figures have revealed. Read more on the Independent website.

54,000 Homeowners Created Through Help to Buy

The Help to Buy schemes have created over 54,000 homeowners in England Housing Minister Brandon Lewis has announced. The new figures show how Help to Buy is helping more and more people onto the property ladder and getting more homes built, with over 39,000 households buying new-built properties through the equity loan and NewBuy options, and 15,000 households buying through the mortgage guarantee. A further 3,400 new homeowners have been created in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland through the Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee. Read more on the CLG website.

Builders and Buyers Benefiting From Help to Buy

Almost 53,000 households have bought a home in England through Help to Buy. New figures show how the scheme is getting more homes built in England, with over 37,600 households buying new build homes through the equity loan and NewBuy options, and a further 15,000 though the mortgage guarantee. Almost 80% of sales have gone to first time buyers, with nearly 70% being for new build homes. House building has climbed to the highest level since 2007, the construction sector has grown for 16 consecutive months, and companies are now taking on new workers at the fastest rate since 1997. Read more on the CLG website.

40,000 Have Bought a Home through Help to Buy

Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis has announced that almost 40,000 households have bought a home through the Help to Buy scheme. Not everyone was impressed, though. Over 32,500 households bought new build homes through the equity loan and NewBuy options, with a further 7,300 sales though the mortgage guarantee (full figures at the end of this report). Over 80% have gone to first time buyers. Responding to the limited impact of the scheme in London and other expensive areas, Alex Hilton, director of Generation Rent, said: "These numbers prove that help to buy is not delivering where homes are most needed, which is where there are jobs.” Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Help to Buy Creates 35,000 New Homeowners and Gets Britain Building

New figures show that since the launch of Help to Buy 14 months ago, 22,831 people have bought newly-built homes through the Equity Loan scheme.  There have also been 7,313 sales through the Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee and 5,173 sales through the NewBuy scheme. This takes total sales through Help to Buy to over 35,000. All sales through Equity Loan – and three-quarters of overall sales through all elements of Help to Buy – are new-build properties. Since the launch of the scheme, house building is up a third compared to last year and at its highest level since 2007, while 216,000 planning permissions were granted in the last 12 months. Recent estimates still show that Help to Buy accounts for just 3% of overall house sales. Read more on the GovUK website.

Newbuy Figures Nothing to Applaud, Suggest Labour

Mark Prisk has welcomed the latest NewBuy figures as a sign the housing market is “moving again”, but Labour’s Hilary Benn MP has slammed the scheme’s performance as a poor show.  Overall, some 25,000 households have been helped into home ownership through various Government-backed schemes. This includes the NewBuy scheme, which has helped 3,749 people to buy a newly-built home since it was launched in 2012.  Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme has seen over 3,000 sales and 10,000 reservations in its first four months and the former FirstBuy scheme has helped some 10,633 people into home ownership. These schemes are to be joined by the Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee when it comes into force in January.  Read more on Housing Excellence.

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.

Mark Prisk’s Speech to the NHF Conference

I should like to speak about how we can increase the supply of homes.  In the Spring, we introduced a series of key policies, including New Buy, which has the capability of helping up to 100,000 people.  And two weeks ago we set out a comprehensive set of measures to accelerate progress. Those measures include:

    *Building up to another 15,000 new affordable homes and bringing an extra 5,000 empty homes back into use;

    *Putting an additional £280 million into FirstBuy - so around 27,000 will now be able to buy their first home; and

   *Confirming Government Guarantees of up to £10 billion, for the development of many more new rented homes.

It shows that this Government is absolutely committed to providing the policies and resources needed to build the homes people want.  All of us need a home, somewhere that families can be secure and where children can grow.  And I shall want to address those social issues, whether it is the scourge of neighbours from hell, or the plight of the homeless.  However, increasing the housing supply, especially of affordable homes, also has an important economic purpose. Building affordable homes is a great economic multiplier - and your buying power can help sustain local businesses.  You also provide jobs and help tackle worklessness.   So, while the issue of building new affordable homes is clearly front and centre - I also want to say that I recognise the vital role you play in helping to protect the homeless, the vulnerable and the marginalised in society.  Read more on the CLG website.

Mark Prisk Writes about His New Job as Housing Minister

Writing in his local newspaper, Mark Prisk sets out his thoughts on his new job.

*Too Few Homes - The population is rising.  It is true that migration contributes around 40 per cent of this population growth. That’s one of the reasons why this Government is committed to cutting the numbers of migrants from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands per year.  However the main reason for the growth is that we are, thankfully, living longer.  If the housing market were functioning properly then you would expect it to respond to this rising demand and deliver the homes needed. But the truth is the housing market is highly volatile, while often failing to deliver the homes where people need them. This has driven prices up and priced many first-time buyers out of the market.

*Kick-Starting the Market - To kick-start the market, we have helped create a new and innovative scheme. Called NewBuy, it enables homebuyers to secure mortgages with at least 5 per cent deposit on new-build houses and flats.  Alongside this we are helping young first-time buyers by providing a further £280m for the FirstBuy equity loan scheme.  There are also many publicly-owned sites which have yet to be unlocked for new housing and development. Some 40 per cent of previously used land, suitable for development, is in Government hands with local or national government. 

*Helping Tenants - The next challenge is how we can reform social housing to help those on lower incomes.  I am determined that we increase the total investment in this sector, by levering in much more private investment, and by giving social landlords much greater freedom over the type of tenancies they can offer.  The current rigid rules often mean that the social housing stock we have is underused, because of old rules that don’t work today.

*Tackling Neighbours from Hell - We need to make it simpler and easier to tackle this behaviour.  That means ensuring social landlords can act decisively and that those who break the rules know that they will be evicted if they don’t mend their ways. 

*Helping the Homeless - It’s true that the level of homelessness is still roughly half what it was just a few years ago. Yet it’s still wrong that tens of thousands of people will tonight be without a home, often through no fault of their own. My predecessor has already acted to cut the number of households in temporary accommodation.  Homeless people often have many other problems in their lives, involving family breakdown, drugs and so on which need to be addressed in the round. The Home Secretary is taking the lead on this and I want to be an active part of that approach, so we can deal with the causes of homelessness.

Read more on the Hertfordshire Mercury website.

Government Mortgage Scheme Close To Brink

The government has been forced into emergency talks to save its flagship mortgage indemnity scheme after one of the architects of the project admitted its launch ‘has been far from satisfactory’.  In a letter to members, the executive chairman of the Home Builders Federation acknowledged that the Newbuy scheme, launched earlier this month, had not seen lenders sign up as quickly as had been anticipated and the process has been ‘incredibly frustrating and annoying’ for builders.  The last few days has seen crisis talks held between the Treasury, HBF and the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which is also backing the scheme.  The Treasury has been forced to contact lenders to urge them to implement Newbuy ‘as a matter of priority’.  So far, only three lenders – Barclays, Nationwide and Royal Bank of Scotland – have signed up, with Lloyds expected to follow next month.  Read more on Inside Housing.