Mortgage Solutions polled brokers on whether they welcome the extension to the Help to Buy scheme until March 2023 only for first-time buyers, with 62.2% saying they agree, whilst 22.2% replied negatively.
Around 15.6% of brokers said that they are in two minds.
Greg Cunnington, director of lender relationships and new homes at Alexander Hall, said that the extension was needed as it gives a realistic timeframe to look at an alternative aimed at helping first-time buyers.
He added: “New build is continuing to be a key element. Hopefully, this gives time for lenders to look at 95% LTV lending on new build flats when the scheme ends.”
Shaun Church, director at Private Finance, said that he agreed with this extension as it is aimed at supporting first-time buyers to get onto the property ladder.
He added: “Despite all, we should be careful because it is not ideal to have too much government intervention within the market.”
However, Dominik Lipnicki, director at Your Mortgage Decisions, said that the extension of the scheme may have a negative impact on the market.
He added: “On one hand the scheme has always helped first-time-buyers, on the other it has increased house prices.
“The reality is that the government is not aware of the house demand issue and this Budget does not provide a genuine plan to build more homes.”
Ray Boulger, senior technical at John Charcol, said that developers and first-time buyers now have clarity up to March 2023, but the way the government made the changes was wrong, restricting the scheme to first-time buyers and with the introduction of price caps that may bring less new build homes after 2021.
He added: “I think it would have been important only to reduce the equity loan from 20% to 10% outside London, and from 40% to 20% in London.”
