A scheme to help people buy a brand new home will benefit about 6,500 households over the next three years, according to the Scottish Government.
Social Justice Secretary Alex Neil said the £195 million extension to the Help To Buy scheme announced yesterday will focus on affordable housing.
The previous scheme provided £275 million between 2013/14 and 2015/16, with a further £30 million available through a separate initiative for small developers.
It is expected to help 7,500 people buy a property but demand for the main scheme has outstripped supply.
In May it was announced that the 2015/16 pot of £100 million had almost run out with more than 10 months of the financial year remaining.
Under the new initiative, eligible buyers will receive an equity loan towards the cost of a new-build home.
Mr Neil said support for small developers would also continue but further details are not expected until after the UK Government's spending review in November.
He said: "By targeting resources at affordable homes, the new scheme will widen access by providing a helping hand to individuals and families who wish to buy a new-build home.
"By the end of this new scheme, coupled with support through the current Help to Buy scheme, we will have helped around 14,000 households buy a new-build home.
"We will also reach our five-year plan of 30,000 affordable homes by March 2016 and our planned investment in affordable housing will exceed £1.7 billion.
"This considerable investment means that through Help to Buy and its successor, the Scottish Government will have invested around half a billion pounds over six years, providing the private sector and construction industry with a huge boost."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel