Help to buy

The government website Own your Home provides further details and guidance on which scheme might be the best to help you own your home.

A 95% Loan to Value mortgage is a secured loan that covers 95% of a property’s value. You’ll need to provide a deposit for the remaining 5%. They can be good for those who may struggle with a higher deposit such as first time buyers, however typically come with higher interest rates.

The government backed Mortgage Guarantee scheme is designed to help buyers with a 5% deposit buy a home. It was launched to increase the availability of 95% LTV mortgages, as the government will partially compensate the lender if a homeowner fails to pay their mortgage. Mortgages offered under the scheme must be repayment mortgages. The scheme runs until December 2023.

The Help to Buy: Equity Loan was a Government scheme for first-time buyers first introduced in 2013. The scheme allowed first-time buyers to buy a new build home with a deposit of just 5%. The scheme closed to new applications at the end of October 2022.

If you can’t quite afford the mortgage on 100% of a home, Help to Buy: Shared Ownership offers you the chance to buy a share of your home (between 25% and 75% of the home’s value) and pay a monthly rent on the remaining share. 

You could buy a home through Help to Buy: Shared Ownership in England if:

• your household earns £80,000 a year or less outside London, or your household earns £90,000 a year or less in London
• you are a first-time buyer, you used to own a home but can’t afford to buy one now or are an existing shared owner looking to move.