Figures released by the government today showed that over 66,000 households have been helped by Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee and equity loan.

Together with the government’s NewBuy scheme – which offers 95% mortgages for those buying new-build properties, the number of new home owners has reached more than 71,000.

81% of Help to Buy sales are to first-time buyers, helping 54,000 into their first home.

The North West is the highest region for the mortgage guarantee, while the equity loan – a scheme for new-build properties – is “particularly successful” in the East and South East, the government claimed. 94% of completions under the scheme remain outside London.

Leeds council is the highest performing local authority across the country for the two parts of Help to Buy – with almost 1000 new homes secured by its residents. While Birmingham council has seen a significant increase of over 300 new completions.

The average house price for the combined schemes is £186,000, or £156,000 for mortgage guarantee and £211,000 under the equity loan scheme – all of which are well below the UK average house price of £273,000.

The average house price to income multiple under the mortgage guarantee scheme is just over 3.5x salary, and capped at a 4.5x.

Charles Haresnape, managing director of mortgages and commercial lending at Aldermore Bank, said: “It’s incredible to think that more than 30,000 people have been able to buy a house in the past year due to the Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee scheme. Many of these new homeowners simply wouldn’t have been able to raise a sufficient deposit without Help to Buy. The latest statistics from the government show that the scheme is working exactly as intended, by helping regions outside the South East and primarily first time buyers.

“Despite fears when the scheme was initially announced, it has not contributed to any housing bubble. We are proud to be part of this scheme and look forward to supporting further Help to Buy customers next year.”