Help to Buy has been a success

The Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme has been a success by bringing 95% LTV mortgages back into the mainstream, Sajid Javid, the financial secretary to the Treasury, said.

The MP was speaking at the Council of Mortgage Lenders annual lunch.

He said: “The Help to Buy mortgage guarantee has bought these products back into the mainstream. And it has been a success.

“Last week we published figures showing that over 17,000 people have already bought a home through the equity loan and mortgage guarantee schemes.

“And that data very pleasingly showed that the vast majority of those people are first-time buyers, buying outside of London and the South East.

“It was also good to see that the scheme has been supporting responsible lending, and that the average cost of a house bought under the Mortgage Guarantee, which is £148,000 and the average cost of a house bought under the Equity Loan scheme, which is £203,000, are both below the UK average house price.”

At the start of 2008 there were over 750 mortgage products available at 95% LTV, yet by the start of 2009 there were three.

Javid also flatly denied that new regulation form a new norm in the housing market.

He added: “The government doesn’t see these mortgage interventions as part of a new ‘business as usual’.

“We’ve taken exceptional steps to address an exceptional situation.

“And we understand the arguments made by some, that as the mortgage market normalises many of these measures will no longer be appropriate.

“That’s why for example we’ve shifted the focus of the Funding for Lending Scheme onto business lending.”

January housing transactions stood 30% higher than in the previous 12 months.