Britain’s mortgage market has seen a boost thanks to government initiatives helping first-time buyers get on the property ladder.
This is the view of housebuilding and construction business Redrow Homes, which announced its support for parliament’s NewBuy scheme and said the Funding for Lending project has improved the market “significantly”.
It said that if mortgage rates continue to lower, the UK’s housing situation will gradually return to more normalised conditions, but pointed out there is a huge difference between markets in Wales and England.
In a statement, Redrow chairman Steve Morgan noted: “[In] Wales, where NewBuy is not yet available and there is no proposal for an equivalent of FirstBuy, we are not seeing the same stimulus to the new-homes market evident in England.”
NewBuy helps people get a 95 per cent mortgage, while the Funding for Lending scheme is offering up to £60 million of cheap funding to banks and building societies if they lend money to individuals and firms.
Mr Morgan further reported Redrow’s pre-tax profits for the six-month period to December 2012 increased by 50 per cent from the previous year to reach £23 million.
