Monday, 17 June 2013

"Ignore what your head is telling you and join up now and do your bit to make prices rise even faster"

says Housing Minister Mark

Housing minister Mark Prisk said: "The number of first-time buyers is at its highest level since 2007, but we are always looking for new ways to help hard working people make their dream of homeownership a reality and offer valuable alternatives to the 'bank of mum and dad' to get together that much-needed deposit .

"There have already been over 4,000 reservations since Help to Buy was launched in March, and I would urge anyone looking to buy to contact their local Help to Buy agent and see if they could benefit from this."

Mark was "reaching out in a helpful way" to the "majority of 20 to 45 year-olds [who] are either unsure how government efforts to help first-time buyers can ease the struggle to buy a house, or do not think they will help".

"The Generation Rent report found that 40% of people surveyed did not know whether government initiatives such as NewBuy and Help to Buy will help to ease the struggle to  get on the property ladder, while 30% thought the schemes wouldn't work – but the same proportion believed they would".

5 comments:

Barnacle Bill said...

I suppose the piggybank of taxpayers pennies could be one of those alternatives to the bank of mum & dad?

Anonymous said...

That number of "4,000 reservations since March" is a bit higher than take-up of New Labour's schemes (which were in the tens or hundreds), but still reassuringly low.

That's 1,000 a month out of a long run average number of FTB's of about 40,000 a month.

Bayard said...

"Three-fifths of the non-homeowners surveyed feared they may never be able to retire if they are forced to rent for the rest of their lives, "

Bloody hell, they really believe the "my house is my pension" bullshit, don't they. How the hell do they think the Germans manage it?

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, to be fair, the Germans manage it by having a large enough rent controlled sector and, until the system goes bust, relatively generous retirement pensions.

Lola said...

B. Yep. And it's double daft since if you save the difference between the lower rent payment ad the higher mortgage payment by NRA you will have built up a fund big enough to pay enough interest to pay the rent anyway.