Is it always the case that shared ownership homes are less nice?

[rellaigh]

I'm going to be doing shared ownership. I don't want to go into the pros and cons of this. Already done that and it's the only way I can get on the housing ladder. All the new build estates near me are building lovely homes, 3 bed detached houses for 350k. I can afford this on shared ownership, but every single shared ownership house on the estates seem to be the ones with tiny gardens and town houses. It is incredibly frustrating and feels as though I am being forced to buy a house I don't really like, with far less square footage, when a shared ownership property at the same price as the nice market sale ones would be affordable for many people who fall within the eligibility criteria. Has anyone else found this? Obviously it's so they can lure buyers in with the detached houses with garages, but I didn't realise this before I got excited and it has killed my dream a little.

I don’t know about shared ownership but it’s new builds that I find horrid. Tiny bedrooms. No storage. Grim gardens..

👍

The estate where I live has shared ownership homes which are exactly the same as the other three beds: same size and same number of parking spaces allocated. Ds’s partner has a shared ownership home which has a bigger garden than most on the housing estate - corner plot. So to answer your question, from my very small sample- no difference.

We've got a monstrous new housing estate in our village of 86 homes. The shared ownership all have similar sized gardens to the privately sold 2/3 bedroom houses and don't appear different in any ways at all. My DD was buying a 2 bed on there until she clocked that they were directly opposite the HA ones and you can see which ones those are from the crap dumped outside them all. Apparently tip runs/getting the council to collect old sofas/washing machines is above their skill sets. I'm slightly baffled that they don't appear to get regular inspections... it kicks off on the village FB page at least once a week.

Not necessarily, there are some newbuild estates near me offering detached houses via shared ownership. I’m seeing it more and more nowadays. I lived in a s/o ten years ago and it did seem rarer then. Sometimes the shared ownership properties are part of the ‘housing association’ stock on a new estate so of that sort of specification and not as nice as the fully-owned private housing, can really depend.

I’m not sure I understand your expectations. Were you thinking you’d be able to get a £350k house on shared ownership, and if so what % were you imagining owning?

Yes i earn 45k a year, and 25% SO with 75% rent + service charge still comes to £250 less than what I pay in rent now.

And there are SO houses on the development up to 575k (6 bed) so not sure where your shock comes from!

They are definitely not all like that. I've just pulled out of a sale (took developer far too long to finish the build and I'd moved on). The house I was buying did have a grim garden but other than that, it had three generous bedrooms with built in storage in each. Plus linen cupboard on the landing of the first floor and another on the landing of the second, a utility room and a garage. Nice area in a large city (not London). It was a townhouse which is not everyone's cup of tea but no complains about storage or size of bedrooms at all.

That’s a bit of an unfair generalisation!
We’ve recently bought one which has four double bedrooms, two storage cupboards (one being a walk in) and an airing cupboard, good sized garden and a drive which will fit our three cars.

OP there are some shared ownership homes on the estate we’ve moved to, our son lives in one (he’s single and it was the only way he could get onto the housing ladder) and it was seeing the standard of the build and the quality of the interior which made us want to buy from this developer.
His house is an end terrace and he has no one on the other side, just a nicely landscaped area. He has three good sized bedrooms and a kitchen large enough to fit a dining table into. There are also some three bedroom detached houses available as shared ownership and that design of house is also available to purchase outright, as are houses the same as our son’s.