Help to Buy jump

Record numbers of buyers snapped up newly built homes in June, using the government's Help to Buy scheme.

The month saw 4,745 taking advantage of a state-provided interest free loan, provided under Help to Buy, to boost their deposits.

More than 3,800 of them were first time buyers, stepping onto the housing ladder.

Housebuilders have been cashing in, with Barratt Developments reporting a 45 per cent jump in profits this morning, to £565m.

Higher prices have been helping the builders as well: the price of the average Barratt home has risen by nearly 9 per cent in a year.

More than 56,000 buyers have completed purchases using Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme since it launched in April, 2013, on £12bn worth of homes.

A similar number have benefited from the scheme to assist buyers of older homes, called Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee.

The Treasury put the total helped by various programmes so far at 120,000.

House prices up, mortgages down

House prices rose by more than ten per cent in the year to April according to Nationwide Building Society, the first time for 4 years that the annual increase has hit double figures.

Nationwide warns that unless more homes come on the market, buyers will be stretched to afford to move.

But while prices continue to race ahead, the Bank of England reports that there was a fall, for the second month in a row, in the number of house-hunters approved for a mortgage.

Approvals had been revitalised over the winter, partly because of the government's Help to Buy scheme.

More recently, though, there may have been an early impact from stricter rules on mortgage applications -- which were launched officially last weekend, but imposed gradually by lenders over several months.

March saw just over 67,000 mortgages approved for house buyers, a reduction of more than 2,000 compared with February, and still around half the peak levels which were reached before the financial crisis.

UPDATE
Now I discover that while the Bank's seasonally adjusted figures show falls in mortgage approvals in February and March, their actual figures show increases both times!

In fact, there has been a year-on-year rise in approvals every month for the last 12 months...

So there may well be an impact from tougher mortgage application rules, but it probably isn't in the stats yet.

Strong interest in Help to Buy

The Halifax says it is receiving 500 applications per week from house buyers seeking assistance under the Help to Buy scheme.

The Help to Buy mortgage guarantee was launched 4 months ago for buyers who have trouble raising a big enough deposit.

Critics are concerned that the scheme will help create a housing bubble, particularly in London and the South East of England where prices have risen fastest.

However, the Halifax says that so far, 8 out of ten applications have been from other areas, and 80 per cent are from first time buyers.

The average house price under the scheme is £157,000, which is less than the typical UK price.

In December the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, described a "raging housing boom" in London and said ministers needed to look again at the Help to Buy scheme.

The Halifax reports interest in the scheme is still strong and it has completed 1,000 loans.