How Help to Buy Can Get You into a St Charles Home
The “Help to Buy” scheme that was introduced early in 2013, has within less than a year already helped more than 13,000 individuals and families buy their own homes. This initiative has been hugely successful, giving a welcome boost to buyers and builders all over the UK. Now you can use the Help to Buy scheme to assist you in getting a loan for the purchase of a St. Charles Homes luxury apartment at the canal side Castle Locks development at Kidderminster. The Castle Lock homes are also eligible for purchase under the New Buy part of the scheme, giving you a great deal of flexibility in your purchase plans.
What is Help to Buy?
Help to Buy is a new government-backed scheme created to help people purchase their own home. There are several different ways to use the scheme to buy a St. Charles Home: to get an equity loan, for a mortgage guarantee, or a straight-forward purchase as part of the “New Buy” portion of the scheme. In all cases, to be eligible for the Help to Buy scheme, you must be purchasing a new-build property from a registered Help to Buy builder. There are several other eligibility criteria common to all three—you must be using the scheme to buy the home you plan to live in, it must be the only home you own, and the home must be owned by you alone. The main intent of the scheme is to make getting a home loan possible for people who might not otherwise be able to afford it. With all three possibilities, the buyer needs only a 5% deposit, which normally would mean many lenders would only offer loans with high interest rates and high monthly payments. Making mortgages affordable with a smaller-than-normal deposit required means first-time buyers can purchase a home much sooner than they’d otherwise be able to.
Equity Loans, Mortgage Guarantees and New Buy
If you’re a first-time home-buyer, or you’re looking to move, you might be eligible for an equity loan for the purpose of purchasing a new-build home worth up to £600,000. Under the equity loan scheme you have to pay 5% of the property’s value as a deposit for the loan, and the government provides you with a loan of up to 20% of the value of the property. You then need to obtain a mortgage to cover the rest of the price of purchase. For example, on a property worth £150,000 your deposit would be £7,500, the equity loan would be for up to £30,000, and then your mortgage would be for the remaining £112,500. For the first five years there are no fees to pay on the equity loan you get from the government, helping to make the purchase more affordable.
The second part of the scheme is the mortgage guarantee, which is eligible to both first-time and repeat buyers, for both new-build and older homes of up to £600,000. Under this scheme, your mortgage is backed by the government, and the government provides a mortgage guarantee to your lender. You’re then able to obtain a mortgage with a deposit of as little as 5%. To be eligible for the mortgage guarantee you are not able to also obtain any other publicly-funded mortgage help, and you cannot use the guarantee to obtain an interest-only mortgage. Note that getting the guarantee doesn’t mean you’re automatically eligible for a mortgage. Your lender will still check your income to make sure you can afford repayments.
Under the terms of the New Buy portion of the scheme, you can buy a new-build home with as little as 5% of the purchase price as a deposit, as long as you meet the eligibility criteria. To be eligible, the home must be new-build, up to £500,000 in value, and built by a registered New Buy builder. As with the other two parts of the scheme you must be a UKresident, but with New Buy you don’t necessarily have to be a citizen—right to maintain is sufficient. Your lender will check your income to make sure you can afford the mortgage; as with the mortgage guarantee scheme you can’t obtain any other publicly-funded mortgage help if you use the New Buy scheme.
Help to Buy a St. Charles Home
Three different ways to use Help to Buy for the purchase of a St. Charleshome gives you lots of flexibility in terms of how you want to approach home ownership. No matter which method you choose, you need only provide a 5% deposit, which means that you might be eligible right now, even if you think you still have some saving to do. Several different banks are registered Help to Buy lenders, including many household name banks. St. Charles Homes makes it easy to take advantage of the Help to Buy scheme: you can call us and our independent mortgage advisor will walk you through applying for a mortgage, and once you’ve obtained your lender’s approval, the only other thing you need do is set a date to move in.