If Connie Duxbury could go back in time, she never would have bought her Help to Buy flat.
When Duxbury, 30, and her husband, Ollie, 31, were paying £1,500 in rent for a one-bedroom flat in Hammersmith in 2020, the Help to Buy scheme appeared to be a quick way onto the property ladder.
It was created in 2013 to help aspiring first-time buyers own a home and allowed borrowers with at least a 5 per cent deposit to take a government loan, interest-free for five years, worth up to 20 per cent of the property’s price (40 per cent in London). The idea was that because the government loan was interest-free, it would make owning much cheaper than renting.
The scheme, which closed in March 2023, was only available on new-build homes. The Duxburys hoped to buy a flat, then sell after a couple of years and move to somewhere bigger.
Instead, they have gone backwards. The two-bedroom flat in Croydon they bought five years ago for £390,000 — helped by a 25 per cent loan from the government — finally found a buyer in March for £352,000, after three years on the market and three price reductions.
