New government plans 'no use for first-time buyers'

First-time buyers will gain little help from a new government initiative designed to aid their entry into the housing market, it has been claimed.

The Open Market Homebuy Scheme offers new buyers grants of £1,500 for homes in affordable housing schemes, which the chief executive officer of first-time buyer service Firstrung, Paul Holmes, has labelled a "drop in the ocean".

He argued that this payment was more of a discount than a grant, adding: "What you are in fact getting is a discount of about point five per cent off of the value of an overpriced property."

Mr Holmes went on to suggest that first-time buyers had been "ignored" and "disenfranchised" by recent housing market developments.

The scheme was announced by the government at a cost of £3 million and is expected to help around 2,000 people.

Those unhappy with the state of the first-time buyer market may look to self-build as an alternative way forward.


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