Households will need to earn less than £110,000 to qualify for the government's new loan scheme for first-time buyers, or £140,000 for homes bought in London, under earnings limits expected to be confirmed at the Budget next week.
BBC News reported the figures, which were first reported by The Times. The Your First Home scheme will offer government-backed equity loans worth 20% of new-build properties in England bought from participating developers.
The loans, which will also be subject to an initial interest-free period, are designed to help people buy a home with deposits as low as 2.5%.
Previous schemes to help first-time buyers did not restrict eligibility by income, but faced criticism for stoking house prices by allowing relatively wealthy households to borrow more.
Unveiling the scheme at last month's Labour conference, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it would focus on those who "really need support".
The Times reported that ministers had initially decided to set the earnings limits at £90,000 for homes outside London and £110,000 in the capital, before concluding that this would deny access to too many middle-earning couples, such as teachers and nurses.
The government has also argued that the scheme will help to boost housebuilding, after ministers conceded they are set to miss a target to build 1.5 million homes in England by the next election. Labour has said the scheme will be funded within existing government budgets, but has yet to say which other areas will see spending cut. Developers taking part will be asked to contribute towards running costs.
The Home Builders Federation, which represents developers, has welcomed the plans and urged the government to move quickly to set up the scheme. The Conservatives have branded the proposals a "colossal admission of failure" of Labour's housebuilding record, and expressed concerns that the new developer levy could push up the price of new homes.
The design has a precedent. Help to Buy, launched under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, initially ran between 2013 and 2021 and let all home purchasers put down a 5% deposit on a newly built home worth up to £600,000, with up to 20% of the cost funded by a shared equity loan that was interest-free for the first five years. A second version, from 2021 to 2023, restricted access to first-time buyers and applied regional price caps.
The arithmetic of the two new limits repays attention. £110,000 is the figure that was examined for the capital, found to shut out too many middle earners, and discarded. It is now the figure that applies to the rest of England.
The same household income is therefore insufficient evidence of need in London and conclusive evidence of need in Lincoln. Nothing about the household changes between the two readings. Only the postcode does.
This newspaper notes that the scheme has thereby fixed an exchange rate between geography and hardship, currently £30,000. A couple on £125,000 are over the limit in Leeds and under it in London, which makes relocation the only qualifying criterion in the scheme that a household can satisfy by driving.
The Department of Unnecessary Research observes that the mechanism at least runs in a consistent direction. Need rises with house prices, and so does the income at which the state agrees you have it.
Officials will in time have to rule on the household that qualifies in London, buys in London, and is later found to have been earning a Lincolnshire salary all along.
On the published figures, the surest route into a scheme for people who really need support is to earn more and move somewhere dearer.