mortgage

The chancellor is expected to unveil a mortgage guarantee scheme that aims to help first-time buyers get their foot on the property ladder in next week’s budget. Rishi Sunak is attempting to incentivise lenders to provide mortgages to first-time buyers, along with current homeowners, with deposits as low as 5% on properties worth up to £600,000. The government will offer lenders the guarantee they need to provide mortgages covering the remaining 95%, with details set to be unveiled on Wednesday. The scheme will be subject to standard affordability checks, and is expected to launch in April. Low-deposit mortgages have virtually disappeared due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Treasury said as Boris Johnson announced he wanted “generation rent to become generation buy”. “Young people shouldn’t feel excluded from the chance of owning their own home and now it will be easier than ever to get on to the property ladder,” the prime minister said. Sunak’s mortgage guarantee scheme is based on the help-to-buy mortgage programme introduced by David Cameron and George Osborne, which ran until June 2017. The scheme was an attempt to kickstart the housing market following the 2008 financial crisis, and was estimated to have helped sell more than 100,000 homes in the UK. Sunak said: “Owning a home is a dream for millions across the UK and we want to help as many people as possible. “Saving up for a big deposit can often be difficult, and the pandemic has meant there are fewer low deposit mortgages available.” However, in an interview with the Financial Times, the chancellor said there was a need to “level with people” over the state of the UK economy, which was under enormous strain. “There are some people who think you can ignore the problem. And worse, there are some people who think there isn’t a problem at all. I don’t think that,” he said. “We now have far more debt than we used to and because interest rates … at least a month or two ago were exceptionally low, that means we remain exposed to changes in those rates.” In an attempt to support the UK’s economic recovery from the pandemic, Sunak has also announced measures to tackle unemployment as the furlough scheme comes to an end, including new funding and cash incentives for apprenticeship schemes. The temporary £20-a-week rise in universal credit payments is expected to be