Since 2013, the government's been offering cash loans to wannabe homeowners in an attempt to make it easier to get on the housing ladder, a scheme called 'Help To Buy'. But a new report says the scheme might not actually be helping the people who need it.
What it means: Known fact: it's next to impossible to buy a house unless you're born into $$ or win the lottery or something. So year after year people try and come up with master plans on how to make the housing market more accessible.
One such plan is 'Help to Buy', and £8.3bn scheme where you get a cash loan which allows you to buy a property with just a 5 per cent deposit. 440,000 people have bought homes through it in the UK so far.
The problem is, data shows that the average salary of someone on Help To Buy has gone up to just under £50k nationwide, and £72k in London. That's 35 per cent higher than it was in the first year of the scheme, despite the fact that wages have only increased by 6 per cent in that time period – meaning we're definitely loaning more money to wealthier people.
Even more awkwardly, one in five people on the scheme also already own a home.
A think tank called the Resolution Foundation has suggested putting a cap on the level of household income for people receiving loans, to make sure the scheme is targeting people in low and middle income households exclusively.
