‘Bring back Help to Buy’ as house prices soar

SCOTLAND must reintroduce the Help to Buy scheme to support first-time buyers amid soaring property prices, ministers have been warned.

There are concerns rocketing house prices are making homes in some areas unaffordable for young people.

House prices have risen, on average, by 17 per cent between March 2020 and August 2021. The cost of the average home is up from £174,907 to £204,176.

It comes only months after the Scottish Government ended two programmes to help first-time buyers, the affordable new build Help to Buy scheme and the First Home Fund.

The smaller developer portion of the Help to Buy scheme remains open.

The Scottish Tories have now called for the full scheme to be restored and home building to be ramped up with the emphasis on affordable new builds.

They also want the threshold for land and buildings transaction tax – Scotland’s stamp duty – to rise to £250,000.

The party’s housing spokesman Miles Briggs called for a pilot scheme in Edinburgh which would allow first-time buyers to own a share of a property in the city, where the average home costs more than £300,000.

He said: ‘First-time buyers must be at the heart of our housebuilding strategy.’

The Scottish Government said it will provide 110,000 homes by 2032. A spokesman said: ‘We have schemes to help first-time buyers through our Low-cost Initiative for First-time Buyers.’