Help to Buy was not a wise idea, no.

From 't’internet

Things done by politics - for reasons of politics - can be the wrong thing to do. Well, whocouddaknowed, right?

Higher-income households were the biggest beneficiaries of George Osborne’s Help to Buy mortgage schemes, introduced in the 2010s, according to an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank.

One way of describing that is that a Tory Chancellor decided to throw a few voting bungs to traditional Tory supporters, the richer among us. But that would, we agree, to be more than usually cynical. On the other hand it was simply bad policy in the first place:

Bee Boileau, a research economist at the IFS and a co-author of the briefing, said: “Help to Buy policies can help first-time buyers get on the housing ladder, in theory, but can also push up house prices….

Not so much can as will. For such plans increase effective demand - effective demand is people who not only desire but also can - and it is effective demand meeting supply that changes prices. We’ve not been shy about this. When we’ve a supply problem subsidising demand is the wrong solution. Yes, yes, of course, politics, but reality insists that demand subsidy is the wrong solution. Which is, of course, why politics is such a bad way to run a place.

Tim Worstall