Keywest are specialists in helping first-time buyers take their first steps on the property ladder and are just waiting to give you all the assistance you could need to become a homeowner for the very first time.

This sort of professional help is incredibly important, especially as new data shows that it is first-time buyers who are still be given the initial opportunity to make their property dreams a reality thanks to the government’s Help to Buy initiatives.

The new figures show that the majority of the people assisted by the schemes have been people who want to buy for the first time. This is despite warnings when they were first launched that they could be misused by people who could actually buy a home without any additional help.

The latest data reveals that of 220,000 people who made use of one of the schemes to buy a home, around 180,000 were in the first-time-buyer category. The statistics also show that the average property price of the homes which were bought was £191,000, which is considered to be within the price range for first-time buyers.

Philip Hammond, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the Help to Buy initiatives are assisting thousands of people to buy homes, in particular first-time buyers. Despite the Mortgage Guarantee scheme being due to end on December 31, Hammond has confirmed that both the popular ISA and Equity Loan schemes will continue to operate in order to ensure that people have access to support when saving for a property or buying a home.

Gavin Barwell, the UK government’s Housing and Planning Minister, said the Equity Loan assistance scheme, in particular, is continuing to be extremely successful. It has now helped 100,000 households to become homeowners.

The latest data also shows that 27,222 successful property transactions have had the support of the Help to Buy ISA scheme since it was launched a year ago. The scheme allows first-time buyers to save money in an ISA and have their savings boosted by 25 per cent by the government. This means an extra £50 bonus for every £200 saved, up to a maximum of £3,000.

The Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, meanwhile, is being phased out at the end of the year as a wide variety of 95 per cent mortgages are now being offered by commercial lenders, making it no longer necessary.

At Keywest, we also want to do all we can to make your home-owning ambitions become a reality. So get in touch today, call 01162 544 555 to discover what we can offer you.