Paul Murphy
Question:65. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Finance if his Department has carried out a study regarding the effectiveness of the help to buy scheme. [45239/19]
View answerWednesday, 13 November 2019
Questions (65)
Written answers
In 2017 I commissioned and published an independent review of the Help to Buy (HTB) incentive and last year, I commissioned an independent Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) of HTB. Both reports are available on my Department’s website.
In brief, the CBA, confirmed the findings of the independent review as follows:
- Prices: While there may have been a very small increase in prices attributable to the introduction of the incentive, the primary driver of house prices remained the continued misalignment between demand and supply.
- Supply: The evidence suggested that following the introduction of the incentive there was a marked increase in supply which can be attributed in part to HTB.
- Affordability: The analysis also found that availability of HTB had reduced the time to save for all claimants and improved the overall affordability of housing for these individuals.
- Benefit/Cost Ratio: The analysis found a benefit-cost ratio of 1.28 indicating a moderate positive effect for the incentive.