Industry and government have announced moves to ease the first time buyer crisis, with housing minister Grant Shapps urging industry players to work closely together and improve communication. <br> <br> At an emergency summit last month (February) Shapps met with the Home Builders Federation (HBF), housebuilders, lenders, insurers and councils for an open discussion on how to help aspiring first time buyers onto the property ladder. <br> <br> Measures to be taken forward by the government include working with housebuilders to understand the barriers to mortgage availability and encouraging them to devise new mortgage products; increasing local approaches to shared ownership or equity loans; and considering mortgage indemnity guarantees as a way of increasing lending to first time buyers. <br> <br> “The meeting was productive and positive,” HBF’s executive chairman Stewart Baseley said. “Housebuilders have already introduced a range of initiatives to assist buyers with bridging the deposit gap, but clearly the scale of the issue demands more is done and the summit was a welcome step forward.” <br> <br> On the day of the summit, Taylor Wimpey announced the launch of its mortgage guarantee scheme which could potentially offer 95% mortgages to first time buyers. <br> <br> The Take5 …