04 Dec, 2018/ by Homeward Legal /First Time Buyer
More than 400,000 first-time buyers have purchased their own home with finance from Help to Buy.
The latest figures from the Treasury has revealed that more than 458,000 home purchases have been completed using the various Help to Buy schemes. Of those, 402,000 were newcomers to home ownership.
The quarterly statistics released on November 30 also showed that first-time buyers have opened 1.2 million Help to Buy ISAs, a tax-free savings scheme that gives them a government bonus of up to £3,000 on top of their savings for a deposit.
More than 93 percent of Help to Buy sales have taken place outside London, and the average price of a home purchased through the schemes is £201,881.
John Glen, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said: "We want to help as many people as possible experience the fantastic feeling of pride you get when you collect the keys to your first home.
"That's why we offer the special Help to Buy ISA for them to save, cut their stamp duty and introduced a new Help to Buy equity loan to run until March 2023."
The most completions using the Help to Buy ISA have taken place in the north-west and Yorkshire and the Humber.
In total, 169,980 completions have taken place across the UK since its launch in December 2015.
The London Help to Buy scheme, which provides an equity loan of up to 40 percent for buyers in the capital with a 5 percent deposit, has helped 13,697 buyers across 33 boroughs purchase their own property between February 2016 and June 2018.
By March 2021, the government expects to have invested around £22 billion in the scheme, supporting up to 360,000 households into homeownership.