The Modern Masonry Alliance has welcomed Government plans to give the housing market a fresh stimulus through its new Help to Buy scheme.
As well as a £3.5bn package to help for those joining or moving up the housing ladder into new homes, he also unveiled an extra £225m for affordable housing and boosted the Build to Rent fund from £200m to £1bn.
Mike Leonard, director of the MMA, said: “We are delighted that the Government has chosen to heed our call through the Get Britain Building Campaign to back housing as the fastest way to create sustainable growth and jobs.
“Today is another step forward but there remains much to do if we are to lead Europe out of the longest economic crisis in living memory.”
Chancellor George Osborne unveiled a package of measures to help boost mortgage lending and give more home buyers loans for deposits on new homes.
Details of Budget housing stimulus
The new £3.5bn Help to Buy scheme is a equity loan product where the Home and Communities Agency will contribute up to 20% of the cost of a new home. The Government hopes this will help to open up wider access to lending at more attractive rates.
Help to Buy will replace FirstBuy. First time buyers and existing homeowners will be able to buy a new build home up to the value of £600,000; while eligibility criteria have been revised to increase the number of people who can benefit.
The equity loan is fully funded by Government. Funding will run until the end of 2015/16.
The Chancellor has heeded calls to stimulate the housing market, by providing support to trapped ‘second steppers’, through an extension of the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme.
This should increase momentum in the housing market and support new high loan-to-value mortgage lending.
An additional £800m for Built to Rent on top of the £200m announced in September last year will be released. This recognizes strong demand for the HCA’s existing funding programme.
Investment will run until the end of 2015/16. The HCA’s Build to Rent programme is part of the Government’s response to the Montague Report and recognises that high quality, well managed homes for rent will play a significant part in meeting the country’s housing needs.
A doubling of the £225m Affordable Homes Guarantee Programme being run by the HCA, which will see the agency deliver up to 30,000 new affordable homes through the expanded programme, underpinned by the Government’s £10bn guarantee scheme.
The funding will run until the end of 2016/17 and the HCA’s existing bidding round will be extended to the 21 May.
The Chancellor also announced increases in Right to Buy discounts and fresh measures to allow social housing providers to charge high earners in social housing a market rent.
The Government also restated its commitment to the 2016 deadline for all new homes to be zero carbon. It also confirmed that social rent policy for the 10 years from 2015 will be announced in the Spending review this June.
