The Budget confirmed a successor to Help to Buy. ‘Your First Home’, launching in April 2027, will lend buyers 20% of the price of a new-build home, interest-free for five years, against a deposit of just 2.5%.
The eligibility rules are more generous than expected. Income caps are £140,000 in London and £110,000 outside London.
Price caps are £650,000 in inner London and £500,000 in outer London; beyond the capital they are tied to the median house price in each local authority.
To judge how the scheme might shift sentiment and the market, start with its predecessor. Between 2013 and 2023, Help to Buy accounted for around 5% of all mortgage approvals.
Its weight in the new-build market was far greater: across London, it supported an average of 28% of new-build sales while it ran.
Not all of this was necessarily new demand. Some 46% of Help to Buy purchasers could not otherwise have bought a home. For the rest, the scheme stretched their budgets, letting them buy more (a bigger or more expensive property).
The payoff for supply was real. Estimates vary, but a recent evaluation put the boost to housebuilding at around 15%. The cost in higher prices was modest, at roughly 3%, though probably more in some local markets.
It should be acknowledged that whilst the experience was in the main positive for buyers this wasn’t the case for all – in London especially, some buyers were caught by the cladding crisis, which left them struggling to sell on and suffering significant higher service charges.
Nor will demand alone deliver homes. Feasibility remains key for developers being able to increase supply – higher build costs remain a significant hurdle. Source: Dataloft by PriceHubble, gov.uk, MHCLG published report ‘Evaluation of the Help to Buy scheme: evaluation findings report’ September 2026.