Buying or renting your first home

If you can’t afford to buy your first home, there are government schemes in England that can help.

These schemes include:

• Homebuy - which enables social tenants, key workers and first-time buyers to buy a share of a home
• Right to acquire - which gives eligible tenants the legal right to buy the home they are renting from Registered Providers of social housing
• Renting a home - housing associations provide social rented housing for many different sectors of the community, seeking to help the most disadvantaged.

Find out what affordable housing schemes are available to help you buy or rent a home on the Directgov website

One of the Government's new HomeBuy products is FirstBuy, which provides equity loan funding of up to 20% of the purchase price split equally between the HCA and the housebuilder. You then need to raise funding (a mortgage plus deposit) of at least 80% of the purchase price. 

If you're interested in FirstBuy, contact your Local HomeBuy Agent, which can be found on the Directgov website. You can also read the FirstBuy Buyers’ Guide - PDF (95KB). For general FirstBuy enquiries please email: FirstBuy-Enquiries@hca.gsi.gov.uk.