MAB figures showed that buyers using the scheme in February put down an average deposit of £9,936, up by 9.2% from £9,099 in January.
The figure is the highest since April 2014 when the average deposit stood at £11,438. The average Help to Buy 2 deposit has risen in each of the past three months from a low of £7,856 in November 2014.
MAB says the introduction of the Help To Buy ISA will significantly cut the time buyers need to save the average deposit.
MAB calculated that the new scheme – which will see government contributing £50 for every £200 saved by first-time buyers up to a maximum of £12,000 – could help a couple to build up the average £9,936 deposit in just 15 months. This is 10 months faster than if they were saving on their own at the same rate.
Under the ISA arrangement, the government bonus would supply £1,987 of this sum at the end of the savings period. This means that by saving only £7,949, a customer could build up the full £9,936 deposit required for an average Help to Buy 2 mortgage.
A couple who each saved in a Help to Buy ISA and saved the maximum allowance of £200 each per month could reach the £7,949 target in 20 months, compared with 25 months if they tried to save the whole £9,936 at the same rate without government support.
If they each put in the maximum £1,000 when they first opened an individual ISA, they could take another five months off this timescale reducing their total time saving by 10 months. This would mean they would need just 15 months to hit their deposit target.
Brian Murphy (pictured), head of lending at Mortgage Advice Bureau, said: “Help to Buy’s importance to easing affordability pressures is plain to see: the average deposit of those using the scheme remains far below those found in the wider marketplace, giving first-time buyers access to the housing market in a far shorter timescale than would otherwise be possible without parental help.”
