Help to Buy Exposed: Britain's £29 Billion Housing Scam

Help to Buy was sold as a leg-up for first-time buyers. By the time it closed, it had cost the taxpayer around £29 billion, helped the biggest house builders grow their profits, and left thousands of buyers stuck in homes worth less than they paid. The scheme ran from 2013 to 2023. It funded 387,000 property purchases and £24.7 billion in equity loans, on properties worth over £109 billion combined. The pitch was simple: a 5% deposit, a government loan of up to 20% (40% in London), interest-free for the first five years. So what actually happened to all that money? I went through what the National Audit Office, the House of Lords and peer-reviewed research found once they looked properly. In this video: Why a 2024 study in the Journal of Urban Economics found Help to Buy pushed up new-build prices in London without building more homes there Why the National Audit Office could not say the scheme delivered value for money, and found most buyers could have bought without it How the scheme helped five of the biggest developers grow their profits, while their CEOs took home record bonuses Why thousands of buyers, especially flat owners, have ended up in negative equity or trapped by cladding and leasehold problems What this means if you're in a Help to Buy property now, or thinking about any government buying scheme Chapters: 0:00 Becky Williams' new-build nightmare 1:14 How Help to Buy was sold to the public 2:33 How the equity loan actually worked 3:14 Where the money really went: developer profits 5:26 The study that found prices rose, not supply 6:36 The new-build premium and negative equity trap 9:34 The cladding trap: stuck and unable to sell 13:02 The leasehold scandal and offshore freeholds 15:14 What every official review concluded 16:50 Where the market stands now 19:14 The final number, and what to check before you buy I'm a property investor, not a financial adviser, and nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice on your own situation. Sources are listed below. Help to Buy scheme data and buyer's guide - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/statist... https://www.gov.uk/government/publica... Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme progress review - National Audit Office (2019) https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/upl... On the economic impacts of mortgage credit expansion policies: evidence from Help to Buy - Carozzi, Hilber & Yu, Journal of Urban Economics (2024) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... Meeting Housing Demand - House of Lords Built Environment Committee https://committees.parliament.uk/work... Britain's New Build Scandal - Channel 4 Dispatches https://www.channel4.com/press/news/b... Help to Buy leaseholders and the cladding scandal - Inside Housing https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/... Help to Buy and the leasehold houses scandal - Leasehold Knowledge Partnership https://www.leaseholdknowledge.com/he... The impact of Help to Buy on the housing market - Cushman & Wakefield https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/u... The economic value of social housing investment - Local Government Association https://www.local.gov.uk/delivery-cou... How Help to Buy blew up the housing market (Which? and Hamptons loss data) - The Guardian (2024) https://www.theguardian.com/society/n... Help to Buy flat owners and negative equity (FOI data) - The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-... Higher-income households benefited most from Help to Buy (IFS analysis) - The Guardian (2026) https://www.theguardian.com/money/202... #HelpToBuy #UKHousing #UKProperty