Brian Page looks at a range of schemes – and developments – designed to help first-time buyers get onto the property ladder.

As we reported in the last New Homes Supplement, the Government and several house-building companies have launched a series of initiatives aimed at getting first-time buyers back into the housing market.

The biggest of these schemes to date is the Government’s £250m FirstBuy shared equity scheme – aimed at helping some 10,000 people to get their first step on the property ladder.

Under this scheme, announced in Chancellor George Osborne’s March Budget, the Government, and house builders jointly provide a 20 per cent loan to top up a first-time buyer’s spending power.

This means that many home-hunters need to find just five per cent of the total purchase price for a deposit – as opposed to the 20 per cent-plus that many banks are demanding before they will lend to first-time buyers. The loan has to be repaid when you sell the property or within ten years, whichever comes soonest.

FirstBuy is rapidly proving a popular scheme among those eligible to take part.

Barratt Developments chief executive Mark Clare said recently that the scheme had “taken off very quickly” with 10,000 people already registered and with sales in the pipeline. Barratt has an allocation of just under £25 million nationally.

And here in Yorkshire the company is already setting about putting it to good use by making the deal available on its Axis development at Market Weighton.

Here, buyers will be offered a loan of up to 20 per cent of the price of the property, jointly funded by Barratt Yorkshire East and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) which is administering the scheme for the Government.

Buyers then have to find the remaining 80 per cent of the price themselves. Up to 75 per cent of this could be a mortgage – leaving a deposit of just five per cent.

This means, say the Barratt Yorkshire East team, that buyers can move, for instance, into a three-bedroom ‘Ashbourne’ home at Axis for just £131,196 (list price £163,995) with a deposit of as little as £6,559.

For that you are buying into a light and airy new home which has an open-plan living/dining area with French windows out to a rear garden, a smartly fitted kitchen and beautiful bathroom, two double bedrooms and one single.

The Axis development itself is a well-planned scheme with a range of house styles, with three and four-bedroomed homes in different designs and appearance – but all with a high-quality spec.

Andrea Linfoot, Sales Adviser at Axis said; “FirstBuy is an amazing opportunity for buyers who thought owning their own home was impossible. Axis offers a great range of house types so we are confident that buyers will find what they are searching for.”

If you would like to find out more about the FirstBuy scheme or the Axis development then contact Barratt on 0800 590733 or visit barratthomes.co.uk for more information.