The government has extended the first part of its Help to Buy scheme to 2020, four years longer than planned. The scheme was launched in April last year and saw the government provide equity loans of 20% of a property’s value up to £600,000 although it is only available on new build homes.
Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s Budget, Chancellor George Osborne has announced, that HTB 1 will continue until 2020.
Mr Osborne said the extension of the scheme will support the construction of 120,000 new homes, pushing up the cost of HTB 1 to £6 billion from £3.7 billion. A total of 25,000 households have reserved or bought a new build home so far and the scheme is currently supporting 30% of all new build homes in England.
Speaking to the BBC, Osborne said HTB 1 was going to end in 2016 but it will now be extended to the ‘end of the decade’.
He added that HTB ‘had helped people into homes…and helped build new homes’.
Read more about Phase 1 of the scheme from RBS