First Complete has warned that for the Chancellor’s new Mortgage Guarantee and Help to Buy shared equity initiatives to work, it is “essential” that both schemes are available through brokers.
The network says that Help to Buy appears to be an expansion on the NewBuy scheme, extended to include all buyers wanting to buy a newly built home. However, it warns that the results of the NewBuy scheme have been disappointing, mostly due to the fact that the scheme was rolled out through such limited distribution via a closed shop of a very small number of mortgage advisers that house builders approved.
It is concerned that, while the type of borrowers who can access the Help to Buy equity loan scheme has been broadened out, the distribution appears not to have been, as the Treasury website declares “Buyers will be able to access this through participating housebuilders and HomeBuy agents.”
First Complete says that for the proposed Mortgage Guarantee scheme to be truly effective it also needs to be available through the intermediary community or else at least 50% of the borrowers who need it the most may find that it is not available to them.
Toni Smith, sales operations director at First Complete, said: “While all real measures to get people on the housing ladder are a good thing, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the key objective is to get the housing market moving; restricting the channels through which the new schemes are available means that they will automatically have a limited chance of success.
“The government will hopefully realise, from the limited success achieved by its NewBuy initiative, that the only way to make a scheme truly successful is to harness the help of those who know the market best – mortgage advisers.”