Scheme helped 387k buy a home and supported a doubling in housing supply – amidst a deepening housing crisis a replacement is urgently needed.
New figures from Homes England show that the exchequer has made a return of £1.24bn on the Help to Buy scheme loans, £218m last year alone, enough to pay for 24-armed autonomous drones to operate alongside Apache helicopters.
By the end of last year 213k of the 387k equity loans had been fully repaid, more than 55%. The Payback for Good report by HBF breaks down all the numbers and highlights the huge benefits the scheme continues to deliver.
The Help to Buy scheme ran from 2013 up until its withdrawal under the previous Government in 2022. Over its lifetime it helped over a third of a million people purchase a new build home, the overwhelming majority of which were first time buyers.
Over the time it was operating, housing supply doubled, delivering desperately needed new homes, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and generating investment in communities the length and breadth of the country.
The period since its withdrawal has been the first time in 60 years there has been no Government support scheme in place for buyers.
Suppressed demand for new homes as a result of a lack of affordable mortgage lending, fears over rising interest rates and the economy more generally is now the biggest constraint on house building alongside site viability. Basically put, if buyers can’t buy, builders can’t build, choking off the supply of private homes, and the affordable homes that come alongside them.
Whilst the scheme has been criticised, it delivered handsomely on all its preset objectives in terms of increasing housing supply, helping those struggling to buy to do so and driving economic growth.
A Government commissioned evaluation of the scheme was completed earlier this year and presented to ministers but has not yet been published. It should provide some balance around some of the myths that have been peddled about the scheme including the false narrative round it being inflationary. The industry has been urging Government to publish the report.
HBF has also been calling on Government to introduce a replacement equity loan scheme and has provided suggestions around what one could look like including being purely focused on first-time buyers and requiring a developer financial contribution to reduce the cost to the taxpayer.
Neil Jefferson, Chief Executive at the Home Builders Federation said: “The lack of Government support amidst a dearth of affordable mortgage lending is suppressing effective demand for new homes, preventing young people from getting on the housing ladder and thwarting attempts to increase the supply of new private and Affordable Housing.
“Help to Buy supported a third of a million first-time buyer households into home ownership, helped double housing supply, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and has delivered a £1.25bn return for taxpayers on repaid equity loans.
“If Government wants to see housing supply increase it has to tackle the dual constraints of a lack of viability due to the overly burdensome level of taxation and policy costs levied on development, and the suppressed level of demand that is preventing investment in new sites.
“Publishing the government’s evaluation of Help to Buy, which was completed earlier this year, would help to set the record straight on the performance of Help to Buy and may assist in paving the way for a new support scheme for first-time buyers.”
Key findings from the Payback for Good report
- Help to Buy assisted 387,278 households to purchase a new build home between 2013 and 2022, including 328,346 first-time buyer households.
- At the end of March 2026, 213,713 equity loans had been fully repaid, meaning that more than 55% of loan accounts are now closed.
- The closed loan accounts had a value at origination of £11.98bn, but the repayment value was £13.22bn, an increase of £1.24bn against the amount loaned and representing a positive return on the investment of 10.4%.
- Since 2018/19, interest payments have generated £510 million in income for Homes England, including £151.9 million in 2025/26.
- Combining positive returns on the Help to Buy equity loan book and the interest income derived from the scheme to date, the Exchequer has so far benefitted from around £1.74bn of ‘profit’.
- The 32,276 loans paid off during 2025/26 had an origination value of £2.02 billion, but Homes England received £2.24bn, an increase on the original value of £218 million (10.8%).
- ‘Profit’ on equity loans taken together with interest income during the year created £370 million in positive returns for the Exchequer during 2025/26.