You can be confident you have come to the right place for Help to Buy Advice as Concise Financial Solutions have been selected by Help to Buy Midlands as one of their mortgage panel advisors due to our extensive experience in affordable home schemes. We provide specialist advice and help on a range of low-cost affordable housing and government backed schemes designed to make it more affordable for you to buy a home.
We give an overview of how each scheme works, confirm if you're eligible for the scheme and which homes qualify under it. We can also ensure you secure the best and most suitable mortgage available from the whole of the market.
Schemes currently available include:
Equity Loan Scheme
This scheme is only available if you want to buy a new build property and the builder is part of the scheme.
The Government lends you up to 20% of the cost of your new-build home, so you will only need a 5% deposit and a 75% mortgage to make up the rest. The benefit to getting an equity loan from the government is that with a larger deposit to put down, we should secure a better mortgage rate for you.
The equity loan is interest free for the first five years; from the sixth year onwards you will pay a monthly administration charge. You will need to repay the equity loan in full after 25 years, when your mortgage term finishes or when you sell your home - whichever happens first.
Shared Ownership
Shared ownership schemes (part buy/part rent) are provided through housing associations.
You buy a share of between 25% and 75% of home from a registered provider, usually a housing association. You then pay a subsidised monthly rent to the housing association for the remaining share. The share you buy is calculated by the registered provider and is based on what you can afford. The bigger the share you buy, the less rent you have to pay. You will need to be able to raise a mortgage for the share you want to purchase, unless you have sufficient savings of your own to buy your share outright.
Shared Ownership is great if you have limited savings, as the deposit required is based on the share you are buying. If you buy a small share, you’ll have a smaller mortgage and therefore need a smaller deposit.
Please note that for some shared ownership properties you may need to show a local connection to an area.
Forces Help to Buy Scheme
This is a new scheme introduced on 1st April 2014 that offers regular service personnel an interest free loan of up to 50% of salary towards the purchase of a new home and will run initially for 3 years.
It is available to servicemen and servicewomen who have completed the pre-requisite length of service, have more than 6 months left to serve and meet the right medical categories.
Right to Buy
If you are a council tenant you may be eligible to buy your home at a significant discount.
For many, this is a better long-term option than renting, and as there is a discount applied to the purchase price, this means no deposit is required to purchase your own home!
Help to Buy: ISA
If you are saving to buy your first home, save money into a Help to Buy: ISA and the government will boost your savings by 25%.
For every £200 you save, you can receive a government bonus of £50. The maximum bonus you can receive is £3,000.