The affordable housing scheme, which was previously only open to key workers and social housing tenants, allows buyers to purchase a share of a property – starting at 25% - with the option of buying up to 50% of the property using a shared equity mortgage. Housing Minister Caroline Flint also announced a new initiative to enable the Housing Corporation to allocate up to £200m of its resources to buy new properties on the open market, either to be made available to first-time buyers through the HomeBuy scheme or social renting.

Full story: yourmortgage.co.uk