Official Statistics

Help to Buy (equity loan scheme): data to 30 September 2021

Published 17 February 2022

Applies to England

Date of next publication: It is expected that the Help to Buy: Equity Loan statistics to December 2021 will be published in May 2022. The date will be pre-announced on the GOV.UK publication release calendar

On 1 April 2021, the current scheme of Help to Buy was introduced, this scheme has different eligibility criteria to the previous scheme (2013-2021), for more information please see technical notes. Due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the previous scheme ran simultaneously to the new scheme between 1 April and 31 May 2021. The statistics reported in this release (July to September 2021) represent the first quarter where only the current scheme was in effect.

Due to the large variation seen in Help to Buy Equity Loan completions in 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, comparisons from this quarter will be mainly compared against completions in 2019. This allows comparisons to be more representative of a typical quarter.

1. Key statistics

Between 1 July and 30 September 2021 7,270 properties were bought with an equity loan, a decrease of 39% from the same period in 2019.

From 1 April 2013 to 30 September 2021, 346,656 properties were bought with an equity loan.

The total value of these equity loans so far totals £21.4 billion.

The value of the properties sold under the scheme totals £96.4 billion.

2. About the Help to Buy equity loan scheme

Help to Buy Equity Loans were introduced on 1 April 2013 as a means for helping buyers purchase new build properties. The government would provide, via an equity loan, up to 20% of the value of a property (up to 40% in London since February 2016) which is repayable when the property is sold in the future. In 2020 it was announced that the Help to Buy scheme would change on 1 April 2021 with new eligibility criteria and regional price caps.

The previous scheme deadlines initially required properties to be built out by the end of December 2020 and completed by the end of March 2021. However, an extension was granted until 28 February 2021 for properties to be built out and until 31 May 2021 for legal sale completion for properties delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2.1 Previous scheme (2013-2021)

The Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme ran from April 2013 to May 2021, offered customers an equity loan of up to 20% of the purchase price of a new build property with a maximum value of £600,000. In Greater London, the maximum equity loan was increased to 40% in February 2016. The scheme was open to anyone purchasing a property but was targeted at first-time buyers, who made up 82% of all purchases.

2.2 Current scheme (2021-2023)

The Help to Buy: Equity Loan 2021-2023 scheme was announced in 2018 and launched by the Secretary of State on 24 February 2020. The scheme is similar to the 2013-2021 scheme but is limited to first-time buyers[footnote 1] and the purchase price of the properties is capped by region [footnote 2].

3. Current Help to Buy scheme

3.1 Quarterly figures for Q3 2021

In Q3 2021 (1 July to 30 September 2021) there were 7,270 properties sold through Help to Buy: Equity Loan, using a total value of equity loans of £498 million. These equity loans supported the purchase of £2,066 million worth of property.

The total number of completions in Q3 2021 were down by 33% compared to the previous quarter, while they were down by 39% compared to Q3 2019.

In Figure 1 below, the grey line shows the monthly number of completions using the help to buy equity loan, the blue line is the 12 month rolling average.

Figure 1. Total completions using Help to Buy equity loan in England, by month (April 2019 to September 2021)

As can be seen from the figure above, the number of completions dropped significantly when the initial restrictions were imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, completions in May 2020 were down by 66% when compared to May 2019. Following the removal of restrictions and the introduction of the stamp duty holiday in July 2020, completions increased, with December 2020 having the highest number of completions for the entire scheme, 35% higher than December 2019. Following the introduction of the current help to buy scheme in April 2021 with eligibility restricted to First Time Buyers, and new regional price caps, completions have reduced. In July 2021 completions were down by 44% compared to July 2019

Figure 2. Total number of home purchases completed, scaled by regional population, under the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme, Quarterly from Q1 2019 to Q3 2021, by English Region

The introduction of the new scheme in Q2 2021 led to a reduction in completions compared to Q1 2021 in all regions of England except London. The decreases seen across England are due in part to the regional price caps which were introduced, whereas London was not subject to a change in price cap, maintaining the £600,000 price cap from the previous help to buy scheme which may be a reason why completions did not decline in the same manner in Q2 2021.

In all regions, completions were down in Q3 2021 when compared to Q2 2021 and were the fewest completions since the Covid-impacted Q2 2020. The introduction of the current scheme has had different impacts in different regions. Completions in the North West are down by the greatest amount, while the decrease in the South West is comparably the least with completions reducing by 61% and 17% respectively between Q3 2019 and Q3 2021.

Between 2014 and 2019, quarters 1 and 3 have generally seen lower help to buy completions than quarters 2 and 4, although the restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the measures introduced to stimulate the housing market meant that quarterly comparisons are not as robust since Q1 2020.

3.2 Property purchase price

The previous Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme (2013-2021) could be used to purchase a new build property up to the value of £600,000 anywhere in England, whereas the new scheme introduced regional price caps[footnote 2] which increased the restrictions on the purchases in regions outside of London.

As can be seen from figure 3 below, the introduction of these price caps has led to the reduction in the mean purchase prices of properties in all regions outside of London.

Figure 3. Mean property price of homes purchased using Help to Buy Equity Loans, by English Region (Q1 2018 to Q3 2021)

3.3 Applicant household incomes

The household income of purchasers of properties under the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme is recorded for each completion in the scheme. ‘Total applicant household income’ reported below refers to the total income for the household, regardless of how many members of that household are making the purchase.

The introduction of the current scheme of Help to Buy (2021-23) was intended to target more lower income households through the introduction of the first-time buyer eligibility criteria[footnote 1]. As can be seen from figure 4 below, the median household income in all regions is lower in Q3 2021 than in the final quarter of the previous scheme in Q1 2021.

Figure 4. Median household incomes of purchasers using Help to Buy Equity Loans, by English Region (Q1 2018 to Q3 2021)

4. Help to Buy 2013-2021 summary

This section provides a summary of the completions using the help to buy equity loan on the previous scheme between 1 April 2013 and 31 May 2021. All figures quoted in this section are only completions on the previous scheme, all completions after 1 April 2021 on the current scheme have been excluded from this summary

Between 1 April 2013 and 31 May 2021 there were 330,710 completions through the Help to Buy Equity Loan on the previous scheme. The completions used equity loans worth £20.3 billion to purchase properties with a combined value of £91.8 billion. Of these 330,710 completions, 271,859 (82%) were to first-time buyers [footnote 3]. These completions used equity loans worth £16.5 billion to purchase properties with a combined value of £73.1 billion.

The previous scheme (2013-2021) offered equity loans of up to 20% (40% in London after 1 February 2016) on properties worth up to £600,000.

The graph below shows the annual number of completions using the Help to Buy Equity loan from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2021[footnote 4]. It shows that throughout the scheme, other than a slight dip in the year to 31 March 2020, there was a continual increase in the number of home purchasers using a Help to Buy equity loan.

Figure 5. Total number of completions through the Help to Buy Equity loan scheme, April 2013 to March 2021

From 1 February 2016 to 31 May 2021 the maximum equity loan was 40% of the property value for properties in London and 20% for the rest of England. In London, there were 27,540 completions, of which 24,599 used an equity loan of over 20% of the property value and, of these, 21,765 were exactly 40%. In the rest of England, a large proportion (96%) of completions used the maximum allowable 20% equity loan.

Figure 6. Equity loan as percentage of property value by region (1 Feb 2016 to 31 May 2021)

In order to qualify for a Help to Buy Equity Loan, the purchaser was required to have a minimum 5% deposit on the property. Between April 2013 and 31 May 2021 the purchaser used a 5% deposit for 54% of purchases in England. Across the regions of England there was variation in the deposits used, in London and the South East 47% and 48% respectively used a 5% deposit, whereas in the North West 61% of purchasers had a 5% deposit. The graph below shows the deposit as a percentage of property value by region between April 2013 and May 2021.

Figure 7. Deposit purchaser level by region (1 April 2013 to 31 May 2021)

The number of completions through Help to Buy equity loans has varied by region across the 8 years in which the scheme was running. Figure 8a below shows the number of completions by region. This shows that since the start of the scheme, the South East consistently had the most completions with the North East having the fewest over most of the period the scheme was running. It can also be seen that London had the fewest completions up to March 2016 but completions increased rapidly following the introduction of the 40% equity loan in February 2016. Total completions per region, however, are not always the most relevant statistic due to the large variation in population sizes in different regions.

Figure 8b shows total completions by region scaled by the populations in the regions[footnote 5]. This shows that, when accounting for population, the North East and East Midlands had the most completions per 10,000 population, while London had consistently the fewest completions per 10,000 population, although by 2021 the gap between London and the rest of England was much closer than in 2015.

Figure 8a. Total Completions through the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme, by region (1 April 2013 to 31 March 2021)

Figure 8b. Total Completions through the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme, by region scaled by regional population (1 April 2013 to 31 March 2021)

5. Accompanying tables

Accompanying tables are available to download alongside this release:

  • Table 1. Number and value of Help to Buy: Equity Loans (quarterly), by local authority, England
  • Table 1b. Number and value of Help to Buy: Equity Loans (quarterly) for first time buyers, by local authority, England
  • Table 2. Number and value of Help to Buy: Equity Loans (monthly), England

The statistical release Tables 1- 9b which appeared in previous versions of this release are also available to download from the link above.

In addition, legacy Help to Buy: NewBuy tables are also available at the link above. These tables have not been updated. For more information please see the technical notes document.

  • Table 3. Cumulative number of Help to Buy: NewBuy completions (since March 2012) by local authority, England
  • Table 10. Number of legal completions, Government liability (£m), and cost to Government (£m) under the Help to Buy: NewBuy Guarantee scheme, England

6. Technical notes

Please see the accompanying technical notes document for further details.

7. Enquiries

Media enquiries: Office hours: 0303 444 1209

Email: NewsDesk@levellingup.gov.uk

Public enquiries and Responsible Statistician: Niall McSharry

Email: housing.statistics@levellingup.gov.uk

Information on Official Statistics is available via the UK Statistics Authority website.

Information about statistics at DLUHC is available via the Department’s website.

  1. In order to qualify for the Help to Buy: Equity Loan 2021 - 2023 programme the purchaser(s) must be a First Time Buyer(s) meaning purchaser(s) who have not previously acquired via purchase, gift, trust or inheritance a major interest in a dwelling or an equivalent interest in residential land situated anywhere in the world; and/or benefited from any form of sharia mortgage finance. If the Eligible Dwelling is being bought by more than one individual all purchasers must be First Time Buyers  2

  2. The Regional Full Purchase Price Caps are fixed for the duration of the Help to Buy: Equity Loan 2021-2023 programme.  2

  3. The definition used on the previous scheme (2013-2021) to determine if a purchaser was a first time buyer is not identical to the first-time buyer definition used in the current scheme (2021-2023). 

  4. Data for the period 1 April to 31 May 2021 has been removed from the graph due to both Help to Buy schemes running simultaneously and therefore is not comparable to previous quarters. 

  5. The ONS population estimate for mid year 2020 has been used across the time series.