Shared ownership/equity is a scam.

Ulfar

Lets not forget that while the housing association own half of the property they have none of the costs that a normal landlord has.

Any maintenance issues inside the flat are 100% down to you.

You pay 100% of your flat/houses share of any service charge.

You are restricted on what changes you can make.

Decorating the property is 100% your cost.

There are restriction on how you can sell and you get charged extra for this.

Most shared ownership properties prohibit sub letting.

If you breach your tenancy for the 50% that you are renting, you will lose all of the property as you don't own the property but a 50% of the leasehold.

The increases in service charges are 100% in the control of the housing association even though you are the one paying the fees.

New build properties are invariably over priced. When you buy a 50% share in one of these properties you should look at sales of houses at double the price you are paying and compare what you are getting. The difference is astounding in most cases.

These aren't opinions they are facts, shared ownership isn't doing purchasers any favours. Apart from anything else it is helping keep property prices too high which is stopping people buying their own homes 100%.

Idiophreak

Ulfar wrote: »

New build properties are invariably over priced. When you buy a 50% share in one of these properties you should look at sales of houses at double the price you are paying and compare what you are getting. The difference is astounding in most cases.

These aren't opinions they are facts, shared ownership isn't doing purchasers any favours. Apart from anything else it is helping keep property prices too high which is stopping people buying their own homes 100%.

No, sorry. They're opinions presented as fact. Just leaving out "I think" doesn't make something a fact. It actually has to *be a fact* too.

You're also having your cake and eating it with your argument, which doesn't make sense.

Either:

a) SO properties are hard to move on and are hideously overpriced or
b) SO properties are driving up property prices?

It can't be both.

The high prices of new builds are corrected when they're sold on next. Perhaps they drive up "average" figures, in terms of property prices, but SO has negligible impact on what anyone else would actually pay for a property.

Peeky_Joe

[quote

You have bought an overpriced property and now in negative equity.

• You need to move yet shared ownership is far harder to sell
• You want to rent it out but the restrictive shared ownership conditions stop you, so you are considering illegally renting it out risking being credit black listed and worse.

Shared Ownership does not help first time buyers to step up the ladder and can strangle young families. I have friends in the same situation and the children issue and need to move is frustrating as they are trapped in a SO property.



No full costs. Shared ownership leases you liable on many aspects as you are responsible for all the costs and a fraction of the benefits.

As I said before the government has stopped funding these schemes and the housing associations are going mad over this lobbying like mad through their spokes group the Housing Federation.[/QUOTE]

Have you seen my property? Do you know it's over-priced? No. Seriously stop peddling you opinion as fact. The board mods need to have a word here. :mad:

I have absolutely no issue with shared ownership and based on the almighty chip on your shoulder, I should be in fact the very category that should be up in arms with shared ownership. The fact is I'm not. I am one of the very souls who should be looking for someone to blame. If there is someone or some group to blame, at a push it is suburban America, but that is really strectching.

My issue was and still is to a degree, like anyone who purchased a property with a 100% mortgage in the summer of 2007, negative equity. Nothing to do with shared ownership. In fact, if I owned 100% of my property I'd be in the hole for a much larger portion and actually less "trapped" as you put it.

With your degree in risk management, what is better in a depreciating market, owning 100% off the asset or owning a lesser percentage? I'd also like to ask you how my situation would be better if I was a 100% owner and not a shared owner? Where should my ire be? What have I been mis-sold? Who should I be blaming?

My mortgage plus my rent to the HA is still less than the 100% mortgage would have been per month and still approximately £150 a month cheaper than renting.

While I'll be the first to admit I'm a little stuck as I'd love to move, but my current situation restricts that. Thank f*** I only own 35% because if I owned 100% I'd be stuck in a hole for the next 10 years with no way out.

I really hope that anyone reading this thread doesn't read your vitriol and rule out shared ownership. It serves exactly the people it's aimed at. Those that can't afford to save for for a huge deposit and those on low incomes.

In the 5 years I've owned (yes Owned!) my property, I've saved roughly £9,000 through not renting and I've got 5 years worth or mortgages payments as capital. I'm not in an ideal position, but it has nothing to do with purchasing a shared ownership property.

Ulfar

Idiophreak wrote: »

No, sorry. They're opinions presented as fact. Just leaving out "I think" doesn't make something a fact. It actually has to *be a fact* too.

You're also having your cake and eating it with your argument, which doesn't make sense.

Either:

a) SO properties are hard to move on and are hideously overpriced or
b) SO properties are driving up property prices?

It can't be both.

The high prices of new builds are corrected when they're sold on next. Perhaps they drive up "average" figures, in terms of property prices, but SO has negligible impact on what anyone else would actually pay for a property.

Can you show me examples where a shared ownership property is cheaper than comparable properties within an area when you consider the 100% price.

Shared ownership can be hard to move on, hideously overpriced and are being used to help maintain high prices (I didn't say drive up) because these are not mutually exclusive conditions.

Shared ownership when they are sold first are over priced which affects valuations for an area as it skews the house price figures. A lot of people are suckered in at this point as they haven't taken part in one of the schemes before and don't read or understand all the clauses.

Its only later when these properties come up for sale that participants realise the difficulty in selling and at that point have to take a loss.

I notice you didn't dispute any of my other points.

Idiophreak

Ulfar wrote: »

Can you show me examples where a shared ownership property is cheaper than comparable properties within an area when you consider the 100% price.

You didn't mention anything about shared ownership. You just said "new builds".

Also, there's quite a difference between "more expensive" and "overpriced". New builds naturally sell at a premium, as they're "all new and stuff!", but that's not them being overpriced, that's just them being worth more. So identifying "cheaper" properties wouldn't really teach us anything...

Ulfar wrote: »

Shared ownership can be hard to move on, hideously overpriced and are being used to help maintain high prices (I didn't say drive up) because these are not mutually exclusive conditions.

I don't believe many people use shared ownership properties as comparables when valuing homes.

Even if they did, the high initial purchase price would be balanced out by other shared ownership homes being sold on cheap, as they're so hard to sell, right?

Ulfar wrote: »

I notice you didn't dispute any of my other points.

No, I didn't think the rest of your points weren't outright lies...but I can try and dispute them if you'd be happier?

The_J

Shared ownership and equity can work for some people in some situations if they can get a good deal. Like anything, if you pay more for something it's not a good deal.

Oh and brit, bad news, Halifax house prices up 2.2% in March. Update your sig,

I am a Crazy Person

You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Crazy Person, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Crazy Person Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for craziness and ranting purposes only and shouldn't be seen as sensible advice.

Ulfar

Idiophreak wrote: »

You didn't mention anything about shared ownership. You just said "new builds".

Also, there's quite a difference between "more expensive" and "overpriced". New builds naturally sell at a premium, as they're "all new and stuff!", but that's not them being overpriced, that's just them being worth more. So identifying "cheaper" properties wouldn't really teach us anything...

So you agree that new builds and shared ownership properties when first sold are "more expensive" even if you don't accept that means overpriced it does however mean the sales off these properties are skewing an areas house prices by making average sold prices higher thereby helping to keep prices higher.

The fact they are higher initially is a downside that people should be considering which goes back to the argument that shared ownership is a bad deal. When those people come to sell they then realise all pitfalls.

Idiophreak wrote: »

I don't believe many people use shared ownership properties as comparables when valuing homes.

Then in my opinion that makes them daft, I would rather have a larger house for the same price, the fact it may be older is also a boon as when viewing you can see how the property has stood the test of time. I would never buy a property built within the last 10 years.

Idiophreak wrote: »

Even if they did, the high initial purchase price would be balanced out by other shared ownership homes being sold on cheap, as they're so hard to sell, right?

Its not just about price that makes a property hard to sell. With a shared ownership property as a seller you can't upon deciding to sell just pop down to an estate agent and put it on the open market, there are complications and costs imposed by the housing association. In addition as a buyer the range of mortgage providers and products you can use is also limited.

Idiophreak wrote: »

No, I didn't think the rest of your points weren't outright lies...but I can try and dispute them if you'd be happier?

Knock yourself out, I would be happy to be proved wrong.

heathcote123

Idiophreak wrote: »

I don't. Do you? You couldn't afford to buy a house...so you bought *half* a house. It's hardly the same thing. The point I was making is that you couldn't afford to buy a house outright and...shockingly, you couldn't afford to buy the whole house using the scheme, either.

Make no mistake that the reason it's worked out for you is that you've had an increase in wages, so now *can* afford to buy outright if you want.

If your wages hadn't increased, you'd have found yourself, a few years down the line, owning (a portion of) half a house that was hard to move on and without any mechanism to raise extra funds to buy anything but...another half of a house. I've no idea how this would be considered as you being "on the property ladder" at all...

OK, I can tell you are a bit hard of thinking.

Here is what you said:

Idiophreak
If they "can't afford" to buy on the open market, they "can't afford" to buy on shared ownership...that's just common sense.

Which was quite clearly nonsense, so now it's

You couldn't afford to buy a house...so you bought *half* a house. It's hardly the same thing

So presumably in your first statement you actually were referring to people that were attempting to buy 100% of a property on shared ownership?!?

To address the rest of your.. erm .. arguament, the shared ownerships here sell very quickly - they are houses, no service charges etc, good area. Had my wages not gone up (which was always unlikely) I would still be building equity.

Do you and Britt share your brain cell?

heathcote123

brit1234 wrote: »

However I do have a degree in risk management

Was that Luton university by any chance?

As you are so well educated, why don't you produce some actual factual posts evaluating the risks & benefits of shared ownership, instead of just reposting horror stories (the vast majority of which apply equally to normal house ownership) and ignoring all the people that pop up and say "well actually Ive found it really good".

Have you done a cost/benefit/risk analysis of the effects of renting for a lifetime vs shared ownership vs outright buying? or are you just a ranting fool?

hayhay2010

I too brought a house in 2008 as we had a young family we wanted a family home (fed up of renting had to move twice in 18 months no issues on our part just landlords decided to sell up) we waited until we found a 3 bed house (which was cheaper than renting a smaller house in not a nice an area).
We got the lowest amount share we could take on 35% anticipating the house price would drop due to being a new build, and only borrowed 90%.
In addition to this we didnt have to pay stamp duty due to amount of the house we own.

Although there are downfalls to shared ownership as long as you got into with all the facts it is not that bad.
I would of loved to have brought on the open market but with such big deposits living in the se of England it would of taken us years to save a big enough deposit and who's to say by the time we saved house prices would not have gone up again.