Equity loan scheme

The Help to Buy (Scotland) equity loan scheme is available on new build homes from participating home builders up to a maximum value of £400,000. The Scottish Government’s overall funding for this three-year scheme is £275 million. Help to Buy has provided much needed stimulus to the Scottish new build market, with nearly 5,000 approved applications up to the end of July 2014, according to Homes for Scotland.

The success of the scheme has been such that the £35 million allocated for the financial year 2013/14 as well as the £140 million allocated for the financial year 2014/15 has been expended. Future new build sales under this scheme, with a completion date of April 2015 and beyond, will require funding from the 2015/16 budget for which £100 million has been allocated. We expect a further circa 3,000 new build sales in Scotland under this scheme based on current trends.

Mortgage guarantee scheme

The Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme is available across the United Kingdom. Since the launch of this three-year scheme, there have been 18,564 mortgage completions, from October 2013 to June 2014, across the UK.

At 2,298 completions, 12% took place in Scotland, which is the third highest percentage in the country, slightly behind the North West and South East of England. The main beneficiaries of this scheme across the UK are first time buyers, which accounted for 79% of completions.

The overall impact is rather limited, as completions under this scheme made up only 5% of all mortgage lending in Scotland between October 2013 and June 2014. We expect further promotion of this scheme from Scottish housebuilders due to the lack of funds available for the equity loan scheme. Based on performance to date and market conditions, we expect a further 
4,000 completions in Scotland under this scheme.

Taken from
Spotlight: Scotland has voted 'No'