Buy your own House
The excellent scheme announced by Mr. Macmillan in the House on Tuesday whereby a £2,000 house may now be bought for £100 or £200 down (according to age) is intended to per form two functions. The first is to cut the burden of housing subsidies; the second is to find some way of employing small' savings usefully in the economy, and attractively for their owners. Buy your own house, says Mr. Macmillan; it Will, in the nature of things, cost a bit more per week than renting one (though under the new scheme, a £2,000 house will not cost more than £3 per week including the repayment of the loan) but there are many families who are prepared to save on the pools in such a cause. The main obstacle to buying your house has in the past been the need to find at least 30 per cent. of the capital sum at the outset. Now, normal building society Walls of 70 per cent. will be increased to 90 per cent, for any houses valued up to £2,500, and 95 per cent. for houses built since 1918 valued up to £2,000; two-thirds of the difference between the old and the new maxima will be guaranteed by the local authorities and the Ministry of Housing in eclusi proportions; the other third, by the building societies. The result, it is hoped, will be a gradual shift from renting to free: holding in the population of this country. The idea is new. Successive acts since the war have encouraged loeet authorities to make grants for the purchase of habits of the British population are extremely resistant to Change.
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