Help to Buy: Five Experts on Its Impact on U.K. Property Market
- Program allows buyers with small down payments to own a home
- Government has backed almost 40 billion pounds of purchases
An advertisement for the U.K. Government's "Help to Buy" scheme.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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Homebuilders are warning that the withdrawal of cheap home loans that stoked London’s property boom in recent years would disrupt the market.
The Help to Buy Equity Loan commenced in 2013 and enables borrowers to take out a mortgage with a down payment of as little as 5 percent. The surge in prices that followed its introduction prompted Bank of England Governor Mark Carney to call the housing market the No. 1 risk to the economy in 2014. Regulators have since introduced affordability checks and limits on high loan-to-income lending.