To think help to buy is a disaster waiting to happen

[Ninmpy]

But it's the cost of the government's 20% slice of the loan that's really competitively-priced. For the first five years, it’s interest-free. In year six, you will be charged 1.75% which will climb at a rate of 1% of that figure plus any increase in inflation (as measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI)), every year thereafter.

20% is a huge amount (and 40% in London). Soon lots of people are going to have to pay the amount back or face having huge ever increasing interest.

I don't think it was ever to help people, just to help the housing companies and keep the housing bubble inflated. All the housebuilders shares rocketed when the scheme was aannounced and extended. Prices have increased as affordability was increased due to this scheme, so it's hasn't helped anyone but big companies selling houses and banks selling debt imo.

I think many will not be saving like mad to pay it off. Just like how so many with interest only mortages have no plan to pay back the capital.

A youngster I know aged just 18 is buying a SO flat. We looked at these as my DS was considering it, but the horror stories made him scrap the idea. I so wanted to say to the 18 year old 'don't touch it with a bargepole' but I can't, I don't know them well enough. It is a nightmare. The worse things for home ownership was BTL mortgages (If you have enough spare cash to buy to let great, but you shouldn't be allowed more than one mortgage), selling council houses and SO. A big sign near me on a new build estate states 'An affordable home for everyone' no, a small percentage of a home for some. Thinking of going to trading standards about the sign

I had no issues with my SO house.

As a young parent on a low income it was basically shared ownership or privately renting.

The SO property was with a housing association. The share we purchased was at a fair market value and the remaining rent (70% of the value) was the same as housing association rent.

So, all in all, our total rent and mortgage was the same as renting a council or housing association property. Very affordable! Plus we had the stability of a lifetime tenancy. Tbh I saw it more as getting a housing association property we wouldn’t have been entitled to through the normal system, rather than really being on the ‘property ladder’.

We had no trouble selling very quickly either. However I have seen SO houses advertised that seem way over-priced both for the share and the rent. We were only allowed to sell our share at fair market value and the rent had to always stay in line to reflect their full-rental HA properties. I imagine this isn’t the case for all SO properties.