Housing Minister Grant Shapps vows to aid buyers

Housing Minister Grant Shapps has guaranteed to help buyers to get onto the property ladder. The people he has pledged to help have been dubbed ‘the boxed-in generation’, who have outgrown their current home but cannot afford to get a bigger place.

Findaproperty.com recently conducted a survey which discovered over 30% of parents feel that for their family size, their property is too small. The figure rose to 40% for families aged 18-34.

Shapps has stated that the current generation are very much unlike their parents who were more easily able to move home as families expanded. They are now stuck in small flats when they really crave a family home. Therefore the newly introduced NewBuy scheme is intended to help this problem. This scheme allows buyers the chance of buying a new house with a smaller deposit and a 95% Loan-to-Value mortgage. Thus these buyers are more likely to be able to obtain a place on the property ladder.

Stewart Baseley, HomeBuilders Federation Executive Chairman, believes the reduction of the deposit price has opens up the doors not only for ‘the boxed-in generation’ but also first-time-buyers. He also believes that this scheme will stimulate the housing industry with the construction of more new houses and could potentially help the stagnant economy.

Current banks offering a 95% Loan-to-Value mortgage include Natwest, Barclays, Nationwide and Halifax. Others lenders are set to follow in the following weeks.

Image: flickr/bluesky4691