Housing minister Grant Shapps is urging key industry players to work closely together and improve communication to tackle the first time buyer crisis.
Industry figures including HBF, housebuilders, lenders, insurers and councils met at an emergency summit yesterday (February 15) for an open discussion on how to help aspiring first time buyers onto the property ladder. Following the meeting, measures to be taken forward are as follows:
- Working with housebuilders to understand the barriers to mortgage availability, and encouraging them to devise new mortgage products such as Taylor Wimpey’s mortgage guarantee scheme, launched yesterday
- Increasing local approaches to shared ownership or equity loans
- Looking at mortgage indemnity guarantees as a way of increasing lending to first time buyers
HBF’s executive chairman Stewart Baseley said: “Today’s meeting was productive and positive. Housebuilders have already introduced a range of initiatives to assist buyers bridge the deposit gap, but clearly the scale of the issue demands more is done and the summit was a welcome step forward.”
Source: Housebuilder
See Also: Property News (0), Grant Shapps (0), First Time Buyers (0), Housing Minister (0), Taylor Wimpey (0), Housebuilder (0)
Date Published: 16 February 2011
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