First Buyer Under gets Home Under New Government Funding Scheme

The first buyer has reserved a home under a new government programme to part-fund buyers to get on the housing ladder.

Housing minister Margaret Beckett is this week meeting one of the buyers, who is purchasing a home at Barratt’s Equinox scheme in Cheltenham through homebuy direct.

The £400m programme provides an equity loan of up to 30 per cent to first time buyers, part funded by the Homes and Communities Agency and the developer, and is on target to deliver up to 18,000 HomeBuy Direct properties across the country via more than 100 house builders.

More than 100 developers have been accepted to offer homes through homebuy direct, and Barclays has added its name to the list of lenders that support the scheme, alongside Halifax and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Mark Clare, chief executive of Barratt Developments said: "The fact that 20,000 people have registered their interest in buying a Barratt home under HomeBuy Direct shows that there are signs of life in the housing market...Customers will be buying at today’s prices, not the high 2007 prices. And the loan for 30 per cent of the property’s value makes it even easier for them finally to own the roof over their heads."

Housing minister Margaret Beckett said: "We have seen an enormous amount of interest in this scheme from potential buyers and the figures really do speak for themselves. The huge number of registrations Barratt Homes has taken shows there is an increasing appetite for these types of shared equity schemes."