Section: Home Ownership

Homebuy Availability Widened

Housing Minister Caroline Flint announced further support to help first time buyers into affordable home ownership.

With immediate effect, all first time buyers with a household income of £60,000 a year or less will have the opportunity to apply to buy a share of a home, under a major expansion of the Homebuy programme. Until now, the scheme has been only available to key workers, social tenants and some buyers identified as a priority regionally.

The new rules will mean that most first time buyers will now have the option to apply for the HomeBuy programme. This allows buyers to purchase a share from 25% of a property or to boost their purchasing power by up to 50% with a shared equity mortgage.

For example a household with an income of £32,000 could afford a house of £200,000 - paying £760 each month, as opposed to £1,350 without the scheme.

Other measures announced aimed at giving support to time buyers include:

A new initiative to enable the Housing Corporation to allocate up to £200 million of its resources to buy new properties on the open market, either to be made available for first time buyers to purchase through the HomeBuy scheme or for social rent. The Housing Corporation and housing associations will work together to ensure new properties are purchased from developers at competitive prices.
Expanding the Open Market HomeBuy scheme, so that more households will be able to take advantage of a shared equity loan to buy a new build property on the open market. Buyers will be able to identify the home they wish to purchase from a house builder and then apply for support from the Homebuy scheme.

Under the HomeBuy programme, first time buyers have the opportunity to take advantage of either a shared equity or shared ownership product to help them buy their home.

Section: Home Ownership

Homebuy Availability Widened

Housing Monthly Diary

Reporting on May 2008

Quick Links

Welcome to the Housing Monthly Diary

Archive Issues Reporting Periods