Mortgage News
Getting over the hurdle and on the ladder
As I was walking through a London suburb yesterday morning, I noticed a twenty-something man standing at the window of an estate agent.
His whole posture brought to mind a child with his nose pressed longingly to the window of a sweet shop.
It’s easy to look at the statistics on first time buyers, but forget the day-to-day reality of individuals who can’t afford to buy a home near to their family. It’s also easy to forget that the options available for housing aren’t as clear cut as rent or buy.
There are a wealth of shared ownership schemes which allow consumers to combine renting with buying in order to get on the housing ladder then staircase up to ‘full ownership’ if that’s what they want.
Equity loan schemes also provide a useful way of helping consumers to overcome the need for a large a deposit. The BSA’s Property Tracker – a survey of consumers’ attitudes to buying and owning a home – shows that access to a deposit is still the biggest barrier facing consumers trying to get on the housing ladder, so schemes which help with this hurdle can make the difference between home ownership and renting.
As a lending industry we have viewed shared ownership with a degree of caution and there has sometimes been a lack of transparency on how schemes operate.
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So in order to provide greater clarity to the sector, the BSA has launched The Housing Hub, a business-to-business site for lenders and registered housing providers.
The site allows providers to display information about their current and future developments. Lenders will publish their lending criteria for shared ownership and equity loan schemes, which providers can search in order to find lenders who would offer mortgages on particular developments.
Although the site is primarily intended to serve as a portal for businesses, it also provides some consumer information and signposts potential buyers to other sources of information.
At time of writing, The Housing Hub was being used by eight lenders and eight providers with more joining shortly. I urge who are eligible to use the site, to get online, get involved and get first time buyers into their own home.
Paul Broadhead is the head of mortgage policy at the Building Societies Association