Budget 'to help Scottish first-time buyers'

First-time buyers in Scotland will have access to a new kind of home loan designed to help them onto the housing ladder, according to the Budget announcement. As part of the new Open Market HomeBuy scheme, people looking to buy a house in Scotland for the first time will now be able to borrow up to 50 per cent of the property value from the government. The government has suggested that the expansion of its HomeBuy initiative will enable more so-called key workers to buy a house in Scotland and give first-time buyers around the UK more flexibility as they look to enter the housing market. Housing and planning minister Caroline Flint commented: “We have already helped more than 95,000 households onto the housing ladder since 1997 though our low cost home ownership schemes. “These new products will help us do even more.” Meanwhile, the Budget also contained plans to see three million new homes built in the UK by 2020, which it is hoped will make Scottish property more affordable for first-time buyers in years to come.