Does Mumsnet consider living in a shared ownership house respectable?

[Justforfun123]

Just for fun no extreme feelings/outrage please, inspired by all the threads about owning your home being middle class and renting being working class. Plus the occasional comment from a snob saying they wouldn't want to live near council houses (some going as far as to say they wouldn't want to live near renters in general!)

So do you consider shared ownership to be middle or working class?

I would see it as the working class getting scammed.

We have shared ownership (60%) we bought five years ago. For us it was great as we got a much bigger house than we would’ve initially bought outright. However the rent does increase each year and we are probably looking to get out of it in the next few years but will likely have to downsize.

If renting is working class and owning is middle class then shared ownership must be lower middle class no?

Oh I've already done it too and agree it's great, how people can call it a scam and prefer to rent with the possibility of being evicted at any moment is beyond me. But after reading a few threads about class on Mumsnet it got me wondering where I stand 😂 it doesn't help that class quizzes online ask whether you rent or own as if it's that black and white.

Would the snobs who don't want to live near renters mind living near me haha

Honestly I don't think it's snobby to not want to live near a council estate.
I grew up on one and it was great but it's totally different now. With the dwindling stock of social housing the local authority are very often the place of last resort and have a far higher proportion of people struggling with issues like drugs and violence etc.

People say they're a scam becuase you can get caught paying a mortgage and a high rent. Not a scam as such and we started in SO and 'graduated' to full ownership so it worked great for us!

Never done a class quiz lol so no idea how they would score it

Working class renting is a wrong assumption for a kick off

Forget about class crap, which is an extraordinarily bizarre and misleading preoccupation, and calculate what financially works best for you. Look at the long term, look at what your situation would be on resale, look at service charges and consider the quality and size of the building. Post 1950s council houses are not such good quality as older ones. Don’t touch a property where there’s a lift involved.

Yeah this. I would not like to live near a council estate these days - or on one - for all the reasons mentioned there. ^ It used to be salt of the earth working classes on them, and most families had at least one person who worked, and it was a good place to grow up. Many of them are terrible places to live now. The 'sink' estates are full of drugs, crime, and high unemployment, and some people on them, are NOT the sort of people I want to live by.

Shared Ownership I would NEVER get into. I have heard sooooo many bad things about it from so many people. You're basically trapped. You're paying a mortgage, and also rent, (and the two combined is often a LOT,) and in many cases you are responsible for repairs too. And also, you will find it very hard to sell (your share.)

Don't do it. That's my advice @Justforfun123

It's an odd one. I did Shared ownership for my first house and didn't feel people really respected it as 'getting on the property ladder' tbh. Not sure why.

BUT it was a great investment for us as we would have struggled to afford a home otherwise, and shared ownership worked out much cheaper than we were paying out in rent on our existing small privately rented house (despite being rent + mortgage). We staircased up from our initial 50% share to own the full 100% after about 2 years (negotiated with HA to buy next 50% in one go, rather than do two staircases of 25% which is what the original terms stated) and then when we owned the full 100% we also got the freehold transferred as part of the deal so it took it out the HA scope entirely, and was just a 'normal' mortgaged home at that time (easier to sell!). The house was affordable, which meant between our purchase prices for the initial share and later staircase share it cost us less than it would have done to buy it on the open market via an estate agent route. We then sold up shortly after and had a nice chunk of equity to put on our next home.

Everyone I know who has bought shared ownership have been middle class, a couple of them probably upper middle class. They all bought on their own and in central London (one lives just off Oxford Street). Nearly all have staircased and bought larger properties with a traditional mortgage.

I've already done it the rent and mortgage combined works out cheaper than regular rent or a regular mortgage at least in my area. I grew up on a council estate back in the day and a lot used to happen, I still live quite close to where I grew up and it's quietened down quite a bit. As all the troublemakers have gotten old and their children haven't been able to get council homes because of the waiting lists so they've moved away.

Honestly though council renting aside I've seen comments on this site from people saying they wouldn't even want to live near private renters.

I don't think about things in this way. I find all this class classification quite odd really. It's not really relevant in modern life. Why do you feel the need to label yourself and others?

I never did before I started using Mumsnet, I work in a very boring job lots of sitting around clock watching so I pass a fair bit of time on here and thats where I stumbled upon this mindset. I do agree with you that it's irrelevant. Like I said though this thread is just for fun/curiosity

Can you afford the rent & mortgage rises, the service charges increasing to unexpected levels, the leasehold cost and all the maintenance costs?

Many people cannot afford to staircase upstairs as the price is the cost of when you try buy more, rather than at the time of purchase.

You also may not be allowed to make improvements to the property either as it's partly owned by someone else.

They work incredibly well if you can 'buy' the share but buy it outright and just pay rent on the non bought share ( which at the moment with most housing associations is 2.8%) -so for instance in many divorce/ split up situations or if you've had an inheritance etc - often means you can have stability in an area you actually want to live rather than just live somewhere you wouldn't pick because 'it's cheaper' - the other thing is if you ever need to claim benefits- you can claim on the rent aspect -

And for those saying 'but service charges' - these are mainly flats and if you were buying 'any' flat not on shared ownership you would have service charges- the houses on shared ownership have very low or no service charges

I would say the most important issue though is buy in an in demand area where 'full buying' is very difficult for young families or singles and young couples etc

My dsis bought one when she was 22. It was a great starter home and she sold it 5 years later and made an 18k profit which helped her buy her next home. She wouldn't have been able to buy a home without SO. She doesn't think she was scammed.

@Kpo58 but that applies whether it's shared ownership or not

I know two people in shared ownership. One in London in a relatively new build flat. Its the only way either would have got a house - my London friend lived in a bedsit for three years to save the deposit.
I don't think I've ever thought about what class they were, one in definitely middle, the other might say she is working class but she got herself through uni and has a 'white collar' job. As I'm also middle class and bought an ex council house (not shared) I'm hardly one to look down on council estates, and anyway one of the above it's not a council property but a detached bungalow near the sea!

I don’t think it’s something I could determine as ‘respectable’ or not. What does that even mean?

Me personally, I would not want to do shared ownership. It isn’t offered on the sorts of properties I’d want to live in (flats/estates) and I don’t really like people that much so wouldn’t want to live in either! I rented until my 40s though when I could afford to buy. It wouldn’t be for me. But I wouldn’t be remotely bothered about if someone else wants to do it.

That said, some of the most financially well off people I know rent, so I don’t know if renting/ownership is as much of a class predictor as we think. The ones I’m thinking of have sold their mortgage free homes in their 70s to rent so they aren’t tied down. Others are off on round the world cruises, etc. Now I think that’s a bit stupid when you have no safety net to fall back on, but not everyone ends up wealthy because they are financially savvy. Sometimes it’s just dumb luck.

I hope you are enjoying your home, OP.

It seems a little complicated with a few hidden variables. I've heard of a few people being burdened with a home they can't sell due to the rent charges