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Planning to Buy: Overview and Options

Overview

Part 1 of Beagle Street’s Home Buyers’ Guide is all about planning to buy when you’re a first-time buyer and is split into two sections:

1. First-Time Buyers’ Options

We will go through finance options available to first-time buyers, including:

  • Government-assisted Buying Schemes:
    • Help to Buy
    • Right to Buy
    • Shared Ownership
  • Government-assisted Saving Schemes:
    • Help To Buy ISA
    • Lifetime ISA
  • Loan-to-value- what is it and why is it important?

2. Knowing the Costs

This gives an overview of all the costs outside of the all-important deposit, including:

  • Stamp duty
  • Solicitor’s fees
  • Valuation & surveys

Introduction

At the start of 2020, despite the uncertainties around Brexit and its impact on the property market, UK house prices increased by 1.3% in the year to January 2020 [1]. However, with the Coronavirus pandemic significantly slowing down the market, it is difficult to know what direction it will go in next. But as we have seen with Brexit, the UK property market is strong and so a crash is very unlikely [2]. Added to this, with the average UK house price in February 2020 being £230,232, finding the much needed deposit- which isn’t fixed, but is often 10% or more- may feel like an unrealistic dream to many first time buyers.

But what seems unrealistic, doesn’t need to be.

There are still plenty of schemes available to help first time buyers get themselves on to the ladder. The problem is that, with all the changes, understanding what’s in and what’s out can be a bit of a headache. This is why we are here to help with a summary of all your options below:

Government-Assisted Buying Schemes

1. Help to Buy

Equity Loan:

With this option, you need to find a 5% deposit yourself and the Government should offer an interest-free loan up to 20% of the cost of your home (this is up to 40% in London and up to 15% in Scotland). The remaining percentage not covered by either the deposit or interest-free loan is paid for with a mortgage. After 5 years, you must either pay back the loan as a lump sum or start paying interest. The interest is 1.75% of the amount of your original loan, which increases annually along with the RPI (Retail Price Index) plus 1% [3].

The Equity Loan option is only available with new-build homes up to a maximum value which varies across the UK, broken down below:

1. England

  • Maximum property price: £600,000
  • Based on a 5% deposit, the government should lend: 20%

2. London (Greater & Central London)

  • Maximum property price: £600,000
  • Based on a 5% deposit, the government should lend: 40%

3. Northern Ireland

  • Scheme unavailable

4. Scotland

  • Maximum property price: £200,000
  • Based on a 5% deposit, the government should lend: 15%

5. Wales

  • Maximum property price: £300,000
  • Based on a 5% deposit, the government should lend: 20%

Help to Buy Key Considerations:

  • The value of property you could buy is restricted depending on where you live.
  • The property must be a new build.
  • You won’t be able to buy a property in conjunction with another scheme such as Shared Ownership.
  • You won’t be able to rent out your home after purchase.

Help to Buy ISA:

The government closed new applicants to it’s Help to Buy ISA in November 2019. However if you have one, don’t worry, you can keep saving into it up until 30th November 2029 but you need to claim your government bonus before 1st December 2030.

Right to Buy

This gives council tenants, and tenants of some housing associations, the right to buy their home at a discount. To qualify, you need to have rented your home for at least 3 (consecutive) years.

How much discount could you get if you qualify? Well, the maximum is £84,200 across England, except in London boroughs where it’s £112,300 [4], but do change each year in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). The actual discount you’ll get depends on 3 factors;

  • How long you’ve been a tenant
  • Whether you’re buying a flat or house
  • The value of the property

There are several regional variations of this scheme. It was scrapped in Scotland in 2016 and Wales in 2019 [5]. The scheme is available in Northern Ireland although the rules are different.

Right to Buy Key Considerations:

  • If you sell your home within 5 years of purchasing, you’ll usually have to repay some or all of your discount [6].
  • You may get a smaller discount if you’ve already used the Right to Buy scheme in the past.

Shared Ownership

If you might struggle to buy a home outright, perhaps because of the cost, or because you aren’t able to find a mortgage for the amount you want to borrow, shared ownership could be an option. This is basically a cross between buying and renting.

Shared ownership means you can purchase a share of a home (between 25% and 75%) and pay rent on the part you don’t own. After buying your initial share, you then have the option to purchase more of the property as and when you can afford it.

To be eligible for the shared ownership scheme in England, you must [7]:

  • Be a first-time buyer, or someone who can’t afford to purchase outright
  • Have a combined household income of less than £80,000 (£90,000 in London)

As with Help to Buy and Right to Buy, the Shared Ownership scheme does vary from country to country. Learn more about how the scheme works in your region with the following links.

Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales

Government-Assisted Saving Scheme

Of course, another option for first-time buyers is to find the deposit for a property and secure a mortgage without using the various schemes above. If you could do this, you’ll only owe money to a single institution (the mortgage lender) at often better rates and fewer additional outgoings. Lifetime ISAs could really help you save for that all important deposit:

Lifetime ISA

This ISA offers you a tax-free bonus of up to £1,000 a year [8]. You could use this sum either for helping to buy your first home, or as savings for your retirement. The key facts are:

  • You must be aged over 18 but under 40 when you open the account.
  • You could save a maximum £4,000 per year, until you’re 50.
  • The Government will add a 25% bonus to the amount you have saved, up to £1,000 a year (paid into the account at the end of each tax year).
  • The money could be put towards a deposit on a property worth up to £450,000 anywhere in the UK – but you must be a first-time buyer.
  • You need to buy your home at least 12 months after you open the account.

Top ISA Tip

If you’re saving to buy with a partner, you could each set up a Lifetime ISA, doubling your mortgage reduction.

Loan-to-value – what is it, and why is it important?

Loan-to-value (LTV) is a term you’ve probably heard before. And it means pretty much what it says – it’s the percentage of your house’s value that’s accounted for by your mortgage.

So, for example, if you have a mortgage of £180,000 on a house worth £200,000, you have a LTV of 90% (180,000 is 90% of 200,000) and you have 10% ‘equity’.

For instance, if the value of your house were to go up from £200,000 to £220,000, the mortgage amount you owed might not change. I.e. you’d still owe £180,000 even though the cost of the property had risen. This means your mortgage could now represent a smaller proportion of your property’s overall value, so the LTV could go down and you’d have more equity (great!).

On the other hand, if the value of your house were to fall, the LTV could increase (not so great…). In fact, it’s not uncommon for people to have a LTV of 100% (no equity). In some circumstances (during the credit crunch, for example), many people found they had ‘negative equity’. In other words, they owed more than their house was worth.

LTV plays a key part in a lender’s decision whether or not to offer a mortgage. Keeping it as low as possible might not only help you get a mortgage in the first place, but could be very important if you want to re-mortgage in order to get a better rate. You could take steps to improve your LTV by (a) paying off your mortgage capital, or (b) making improvements to your house to improve its value.

Or – even better – both!

Next Steps

Now you should have a good idea of what way of getting on the housing ladder is best for you.

Sourcing the deposit should be your first aim but there are other costs around buying, including stamp duty, solicitor fees, valuations and surveys you also need to think about. Find out all about these in the next part of our Planning to Buy section: ‘Knowing the Costs’.

Appendix

  1. GOV.UK– UK House Price Index summary: January 2020- 25th March 2020
  2. Which? – How will coronavirus affect house prices?- 2nd June 2020
  3. Home Owners Alliance – Help to Buy equity loan explained
  4. GOV.UK– Right to Buy: buying your council home
  5. National Assembly for Wales – Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Act 2018 – January 2019
  6. GOV.UK– Right to Buy: buying your council home
  7. Help To Buy – Shared Ownership
  8. GOV.UK – Lifetime ISA

Additional Sources

  1. Money Advice Service – Help to Buy scheme: Everything you need to know
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