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First-time Buyer

Help to Buy ISA bonus helps fund £48bn of property purchases

Paloma Kubiak
Written By:
Paloma Kubiak
Posted:
Updated:
27/02/2020

The latest Help to Buy ISA statistics reveal savers received £358m in bonuses, used to finance properties worth £48.7bn in total.

In the three months to September 2019, just over 31,000 bonus payments were made, helping first-time buyers complete 24,000 property transactions.

The latest quarterly statistics reveal the value of properties purchased through the Help to Buy ISA scheme stood at £4.5bn.

Since the launch of the Help to Buy ISA in December 2015, 280,567 property completions have been supported by the scheme, with 370,768 bonuses paid.

HM Treasury revealed the average bonus stands at £966 with the highest number of completions in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber.

The median age of a first-time buyer in the scheme is 28, compared to the national first-time buyer median age of 30. Further, the mean value of property purchased through the scheme stands at £173,580, compared to the average first-time buyer price of £197,433.

The Help to Buy ISA scheme closed to new accounts on 30 November 2019. But existing account holders can continue saving into their account until 30 November 2029. The Help to Buy: ISA government bonus must be claimed by 1 December 2030.

Separate statistics on the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme also revealed there were 52,703 transactions in the time period, with first-time buyers accounting for 43,686 of these sales – an increase of 6.2%.

The scheme has now supported almost 250,000 transactions since its launch in 2013.

The total value of these equity loans, which enable buyers to put down a bigger deposit, stands at £14.31bn, with the value of the properties sold under the scheme coming in at £65.69bn.