Outlining the future of housing policy in Scotland, Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, promised to expand the scheme of offering grants to FTBs to help them get on the housing ladder, as well as working closer with lenders to develop new finance solutions.
She also suspended right-to-buy on all new council builds to prevent low-cost housing from being sucked up by private owners, and gave a commitment to build more homes.
Sturgeon said: “If people are to meet their needs and aspirations for housing that they can afford; and if the country is to benefit from sustainable growth, we must build more houses – to higher standards – across all tenures. To meet the needs of all in Scotland, our housing policy must provide choice – a mix of houses to buy and to rent. That means taking demand for rented housing as seriously as that for owner occupation.”
The speech committed to setting up ‘Low Cost Initiative for FTBs’, to offer them a mix of government grants, shared equity schemes and mortgage-related products and services, as well as the establishment of a Scottish Housing Support Fund.
Sturgeon also gave the government’s backing to the implementation of Single Surveys.
Responding, Kennedy Foster, policy consultant at the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), Scotland, said: “Lenders have already responded to increasing affordability constraints but while we support efforts to assist FTBs into ownership, we have doubts whether a grant will improve affordability. The suspension of right-to-buy will help support councils which have started building again, although the CML continues to urge the government to choose a quiet time in the housing market for implementation of the Single Survey, to minimise any impact on supply.”
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