The recently published government evaluation of the Help to Buy scheme suggests that supporting buyers can give developers greater confidence and lead to more homes being built. It estimates that around 15% of the new homes built in England while the scheme operated were attributable to Help to Buy, with the impact on developer confidence strongest in its earlier years.
It also offers useful lessons for Your First Home. The evaluation found that Help to Buy delivered very high value for money and helped some buyers purchase sooner than they otherwise could have. Nearly half of customers said they would not have been able to buy without the scheme. There was some evidence of modest price increases in less affordable areas, although these varied by location. The proposal to restrict the new scheme to first-time buyers, and apply income limits and local property price caps, reflects the desire of the government to target support carefully.
Clear communication will be just as important. Most Help to Buy customers had a positive experience, but some were unclear about the equity loan and repayment process. An equity loan is not a grant, so buyers need to understand from the outset what happens when interest becomes payable or they want to remortgage, sell or repay it.
We know the broad outline of Your First Home, but important details are still to come. Sharing them quickly will help buyers, brokers, lenders and builders prepare, and reduce the risk of buyers putting decisions on hold while they wait to find out whether they qualify.

Your First Home will offer just one route, and won’t provide the answer for everyone, and it applies in England rather than across the UK.
Depending on where they live and their circumstances, first-time buyers may have other mortgage, shared ownership or government-backed options. Some will be better suited to a standard high loan-to-value mortgage, while for others, Shared Ownership or First Homes may be a more realistic route.
Your First Home could also encourage people who had assumed homeownership was beyond their reach to take another look, and you can help them. You don’t need an established relationship with a housebuilder or a desk on a development to support these clients.
Brokers can explain what may be possible, compare the upfront and longer-term costs of the available routes and help clients make a well-informed choice. Understanding the scheme will therefore be important even if it turns out not to be the right answer for that particular buyer.

Lloyds Banking Group has supported first-time buyers, new-build clients and government-backed routes into homeownership for many years and has extensive experience of new-build lending.
We understand that these cases can bring different timescales, criteria and processes, and we’ll work with brokers as the detail of Your First Home becomes clearer.
We welcome what the scheme is trying to achieve and the confidence it could give buyers and builders. We now want to understand the detail and what it will mean in practice for clients, brokers and the wider market.
The opportunity is clear. If Your First Home helps more people see a realistic path to homeownership, gives builders the confidence to invest and creates more opportunities for brokers to support aspiring buyers, it will have made a real difference.

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