London house prices: Havering, Croydon and Bromley are London’s Help to Buy hotspots
This month is the second anniversary of the launch of Help to Buy, the scheme which allows cash-strapped house buyers to borrow 95 per cent mortgages.
The scheme may be one of the government's most controversial policies, but it has also been one of its most popular. In fact, new research suggests that, as of the end of February, almost 53,000 households had borrowed mortgages under the scheme.
The UK's most popular place to buy a home under the scheme is Leicester, where there have been 892 completions, while the most popular is the MK42 postcode in Bedford, where there have been 309 completions under the scheme.
But what of the capital, where over recent years notoriously expensive property has priced out even the best-off buyers? The research, by TotallyMoney.com, shows despite speculation to the contrary, buyers in the capital have subscribed to the scheme – but the areas capitalising the most are on the periphery of the capital, such as Havering (London's Help to Buy hotspot, with 375 completions under the scheme) and Croydon (242 completions).
In five boroughs – Westminster, Canada, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Hammersmith and Fulham – there are yet to be any completions under the scheme at all. More encouragingly, though, in Greenwich – one of London's best-off boroughs – there have been 207 completions, while in another "posh" area, Richmond upon Thames, five homes have been bought through Help to Buy. Every little helps, we suppose…