Own goals
Inside edge
What is low-cost home ownership for? A series of developments this week make me wonder whether the attitudes of lenders, providers and the government have ever been further apart.
Conservative housing spokesman Grant Shapps has dubbed HomeBuy Direct ‘a very expensive flop’ this morning as he claimed that nationalised Northern Rock has refused to support it and less than five homes have been bought under the scheme since it was launched in September.
Housing minister John Healey has - putting it mildly - disappointed housing associations by scrapping Open Market HomeBuy to concentrate on new build schemes….like HomeBuy Direct.
In a letter to Inside Housing Steve Howlett, chair of the G15 group of leading associations, accuses lenders of lacking corporate social responsibility by favouring shared equity over shared ownership.
And it emerged that up to two-thirds of first-time buyers who thought they had got an equity loan through MyChoice HomeBuy missed out when it ran out of funding.
So should low-cost home ownership prop up housebuilding? Should it be targetted specifically at low-income households or people on the waiting list? Or should it help anyone who hasn’t got a deposit and can’t get a high loan to value mortgage?
And what happens when the public spending shutters come down?
Readers' comments (2)
Steve | Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:19 GMT
I feel so let down and low at the moment. it's unreal. I'm 34 and have shared for 16 years; I'm engaged and my partner and I live with another couple to save money. Our joint income is currently around £60k a year - so we should have nothing to complain about, right?
We'd love our own home; the problem is that, 6 years ago, I was in business and it failed, through no fault of my own. Rather than go bankrupt, I took the whole lot on in personal debt, went to college for a year to retrain and worked every hour to get a new, well paid job. I've never missed a payment in my life; at a peak of £67k just three years ago, we've reduced the debt to £36k and we continue to make payments of around £2,000 every month - on top of paying £1,100 or so on rent and bills. Travel is £100 each and what little else we have left goes straight off the loans.
We're not irresponsible borrowers; quite the opposite. Nothing is bought new if we can avoid it and we monitor every single transaction through our accounts, planning day by day to ensure the bills are paid. Bills are our top priority and we're fiercely proud of the fact that we meet our obligations first before stopping to think about luxuries like.. food!
The MyChoice HomeBuy represented a chance to own our own home - and that's been pulled. It seems that if you're honest, hardworking and take responsibility for a mess then there's no help. I sometimes really wonder if I should have gone bankrupt...
We don't have a bad standard of living - we have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and we're able these days to run a car and take the odd holiday - but there's just no chance to have our own home and yet, day in day out, we see those who don't want to work handed keys to properties... a very bitter pill to swallow.
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iain howell | Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:43 GMT
I realise this article is 2 months old but I wonder how many HomeBuy Direct applications have been completed up to now, I say this as I have applied for the scheme and after six weeks since my reservation was made I still do not have authority to proceed as the HA acting as Homebuy Agent will not issue this as they are still asking questions by e-mail of the Financial Adviser I am required to deal with who has presented all the required personal information. I have no adverse credit, am a key worker and FTB and earn between £30-40k so would not think there is an issue with the criteria, however I have to say on the two occasions I phoned and tried to discuss with the HA to find out if I can help solve this they said it had to come through the FA so I am not surprised there are delays.
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