Details of the pricing thresholds for the newly launched Your First Home scheme have been published by the government.
The scheme, announced in the budget last week, supports 2.5% deposits, backed by 20% government-backed equity loans, for prospective first-time buyers purchasing a new-build property from a developer signed up to the scheme. The scheme would offer access equity loans interest free for five years, rising to 1.5% in year six and 3% from year seven.
Your First Home is the long-awaited replacement of Help to Buy and will accept applications from February 2027.
The government have now published the price caps for the scheme, which range from £215,000 to £650,000.
South Tyneside has the lowest price cap at £215,000, with the price cap in Gosport, Northumberland, County Durham and, Cumberland amongst others set at £220,000. London local authority’s dominate the top end of the price cap with 14 LA’s in Greater London set at £650,000. A further 24 local authority’s have a price cap set at £500,000-£530,000.
The average price cap is £361,250 across the 296 local authorities in England.
The latest Office for National Statistics figures show the average property price in England is £293,000. 85 of the 296 local authorities (29%) have caps set below this national average.
Concerns have been raised about the administration involved wen it comes to conveyancing, and the potential for new build prices to be artificially inflated. Writing in this publication Andrew Boast, founder & CEO at SAM Conveyancing said there were important lessons from Help to Buy that needed to be heeded in order for Your First Home to be successful.
“Between 2013 and 2023, more than 387,000 properties were purchased using Help to Buy equity loans” said Boast, “supporting approximately 328,000 first-time buyers. The scheme proved that demand-side financial support can move buyers onto the ladder. Yet its long-term market distortions were substantial.
“Our analysis of HM Land Registry figures at SAM Conveyancing shows that average new-build prices in England and Wales surged by 70.1% between April 2013 and March 2023, comfortably outstripping the 65.6% rise seen across existing properties. That gap has widened further: by May 2026, new builds commanded an average price of £396,889, compared with £283,194 for existing homes, representing a 40.1% new-build premium.
“Pumping billions of pounds of state equity into a supply-constrained new-build sector created a captive market. Rather than competing on price, developers were incentivised to absorb buyers’ enhanced budgets into higher asking prices.”
