Your First Home: a Help to Buy scheme model with 2.5% deposits, and developers may pay towards it

First-time buyers in England could get into a new-build home with a 2.5% deposit and a government equity loan worth up to 20% of the price, Construction Enquirer reported on 28 September 2026. The scheme is called Your First Home, and there is no start date yet: Construction Enquirer says the launch timetable will be set out at the Budget on 28 October.

Construction Enquirer describes it as a return to a model similar to the old Help to Buy scheme equity loan, not the old programme coming back. That scheme backed 387,195 purchases in England between April 2013 and May 2023, Construction Enquirer reports, with equity loans totalling £24.7bn. Those figures belong to the old scheme, not to the budget for the new one.

The money goes to buyers, not to your business, so there is nothing here among the grants and schemes you could claim yourself. If you work for developers rather than sell homes, any benefit would come through new-home sales, and nobody has put a number on extra contracts.

Who qualifies for the Help to Buy style loans is still blank

The detail is due at the Budget, Construction Enquirer says, including household income limits and regional property price caps. Until then there is no launch date, no word on how long the loan stays interest-free and nothing on what the buyer pays after that.

Those caps decide which of your buyers, and which of your homes, could qualify. Construction Products Association economics director Noble Francis warned, in the same Construction Enquirer report, that viability remained a major constraint in lower-value housing markets. He said the scheme’s impact would depend heavily on the price caps and income thresholds. If you build where house prices are lower, that is the line to watch.

What developers could pay is not yet known

Developers who join would be expected to contribute towards the programme’s costs, according to Construction Enquirer. How much, how it is collected and whether it is optional are all still blank.

So you can’t put a figure on it yet, the same way you can’t with building control fees under the reform plan. It would sit in your numbers alongside any building safety levy liability on the same homes. Leave a line for it and don’t price it.

A scheme that helps a buyer through the door can still add a cost for the developer. Both can be true on the same plot.

The Home Builders Federation wants it rolled out quickly. Its chief executive Neil Jefferson said the scheme needed to work for builders of all sizes and across different parts of the country, Construction Enquirer reports. That is a request from the industry, not a promise, and the terms for joining are still to come.

Until a developer puts a job and a start date in writing, keep your team where the work is. The detail lands at the Budget.