Saturday, August 31, 2019

Helping the Rich

More than 5,500 households with an annual income of over £80,000 have been given help-to-buy loans in the past year compared with 4,142 households earning less than £30,000, the government’s own figures have revealed. 

Well over 2,000 of the richest households who were awarded taxpayer-funded loans, allowing them to buy new-build houses with only a small deposit, had incomes in excess of £100,000.

Whitehall figures now show that average renting households, with an income of £27,000, are missing out and a mere 0.2% of England’s private renting households used help to buy in 2018-19.
Shelter, the housing charity, which analysed data from the English Housing Survey, said it shows the policy has done little for the large majority of private renters looking for a stable home.
“Help to buy is often touted by the government as a major success, when in truth it’s a major failure,” said Polly Neate, the chief executive of the campaigning charity. “It’s a policy that boosts the bank balances of big developers but has nothing to offer the average renter. At the crux of this crisis is the desperate shortage of genuinely affordable social homes,” said Neate. “In fact, 3m more social homes are needed in the coming years. This is where the new government should be taking decisive action, and where the greatest opportunity to help trapped renters lies.

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