Help to Buy only helping a lucky few according to economist

Wed, 17 Jun 2015

An expert has commented on the Help to Buy scheme and expressed his opinions that it has only helped a few lucky first time buyers, but made the market more inhospitable for all others.

Matthew Pointon of Capital Economics has been reported in the Guardian to say that only "a lucky few" have been helped by the Help to Buy scheme, the flagship scheme of the Conservatives, in the last two years since its inception.

With the combined sales of Help to Buy and the Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee schemes now exceeds 100,000 it has definitely had an impact on quite a lot of people's lives, by giving them access to lower deposit mortgages.

However, this number pales in comparison to the 2,000,000 young adults who were reported last year to be trapped living with their parents.

It has been feared since it was first announced that the schemes would boost the house prices of the rest of the market. Indeed, this is what Pointon has said. "The Help-to-buy scheme was able to temporarily boost the availability of low deposit mortgages, helping a lucky few first-time buyers. But that improvement is proving to be temporary, as the resulting boost to house prices acts to lock other would-be buyers out of the market," he commented.

However, he also pointed out that it was difficult to highlight the effects that the scheme has had on the market because of how the mortgages are simply recorded as 75 per cent mortgages, even when buyers borrow a 20 per cent deposit loan off of the government.

Whether Help to Buy is managing to help or not, the market is still a tricky place, especially for first time buyers.

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