Higher-Income Households Benefited Most from Help to Buy, IFS Finds

Our take

For South African policymakers and housing advocates, the IFS findings offer a cautionary tale worth examining closely. SA has its own suite of first-time buyer support mechanisms — from the Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme (FLISP) to various bank deposit-assistance products — and the same design risk applies: broad eligibility tends to funnel benefits toward households already close to affording a home, rather than those genuinely locked out of the market. The IFS evidence that mortgage guarantee schemes do little for affordability when income-based lending caps remain in place is particularly relevant, given that SA banks already apply strict debt-to-income criteria. For local landlords and buy-to-let investors, the UK experience also reinforces that demand-side subsidies without supply-side reform tend to push prices up, not down. Any future South African government intervention aimed at broadening homeownership would need tight income targeting and a parallel commitment to increasing housing stock — otherwise the primary beneficiaries will again be those who needed the least help.