Help at last for first time buyers

Posted in 'Mortgages' by Barry Stamp

21 November 2011

£400m has been put aside to help first time buyers to gain a step on the property ladder.

The First Buy scheme will be available to new home buyers with a maximum household annual income of £60,000 in possession of enough savings to put down a 5% deposit.

Help under the First Buy scheme will come in the form of a 5 year interest free loan of up to 20% of the value of the new home. This is to be jointly funded by the taxpayer/government and by beleaguered housebuilders and is repayable when the house is sold.

The benefits of the First Buy scheme are to preserve around 40,000 construction jobs through the building of 10,000 new homes.

Any help for the first time buyer market is of course welcomed with open arms, and while there may be many critics, a kick start to the housing market should see knock-on effects in retail spending and should ultimately help to stimulate growth.

Help with deposits is one side of the story, but anyone who is thinking of taking advantage of First Buy must also make sure that when their application for a mortgage is assessed, that they have the best chance of being approved. To do that, you should check your credit report to make sure that it is free of error and remains free from error. By subscribing to our Multi Agency Credit Report Service you can do just that. It’s free to try for the first 30 days, then costs only £9.99 per month – around half of the cost of our nearest competitor, yet providing more than twice the information.

You can also use checkmyfile to check how the house prices in any postcode have changed recently for free using our free Check Any Postcode Service – using this you can see what the average cost is for each type of housing, to help locate areas of cheaper housing.