Is shared ownership affordable?

Monika, “you might as well rent – at least you would be entitled to Housing Benefit.”. If you are earning sufficient in London to contemplate purchasing a property even on shared ownership is it likely you would qualify for housing benefit?

The advantage of putting money into purchasing property in one form or another is it helps build your savings instead of enriching a landlord. And do you think repairs on a new property are likely to be a significant factor?

However, Patrick and I agree on somehow getting jobs and people away from an overpriced overpopulated capital city and using more affordable parts of the country. England really has some nice places away from the dirt, crowds and pollution.

I go along with that too. I cannot think of a single reason why Which? needs to be headquartered in central London. There are plenty of towns and cities within 1-2 hours of London with vacant premises suitable for all manner of uses, sometimes with basement or on-site parking and other benefits. Patrick mentioned Norwich and I couldn’t make a better recommendation. You can buy a semi-detached three-bedroom house within ten minutes walk of the city centre with its excellent facilities for under £300,000 or a modern two-bedroom apartment with good-sized rooms in a smart block for under £200,000. Saving on housing expenses, travel-to-work costs, and gaining quality time outside of work – I don’t understand why staff are not putting more pressure on their employers to start making moves away from the metropolis. People with a house to sell in Greater London and the home counties can improve their quality of life enormously if they reinvest their equity in a provincial property.

I don’t think firms can make an entire long-distance relocation in one move – it is too disruptive to other members of employee’s families who also have roots, workplaces, schools, and connexions in the capital; but they can set up a satellite location and progressively move staff across as opportunities present as well as hiring local staff to fill gaps if HQ staff decide not to move. Spreading it out over two or three years gives people a chance to organise their move and plan their futures. One problem is that the employee’s salary might remain the same [excluding a London supplement] but their partners or grown up kids sharing their home might find it more difficult to get a job with the same pay as they are used to in London, which is why more time is needed. But the savings in living costs soon compensate for those differences. It sounds like a frightening logistical nightmare but with good planning, consultation, clear objectives and support it can be done successfully. The staff benefit, and the organisation benefits as well.

Unless there are substantial relocations of employment away from the capital there will be two adverse consequences: (1) the transport infrastructure, which is already nearly at breaking point in the peaks, will seize up despite all the new investment and new rail lines going in. Will the UK be able to afford £4-5 billion a year in new transport provision just to keep London in a steady state? (2) people are already paying whopping sums to live in ever smaller accommodation and this kind of housing is trickling out to the inner and the outer suburbs as the larger properties get spit into flats. Claire has described the miserable conditions that you have to endure for a quarter of a million pounds or more. This is not good for people, nor for their social and family life.

Where does renting leave people when they retire from full-time work? Because it might be thirty years away doesn’t mean people can ignore it. Rents never stop rising but with a repayment mortgage what you usually owe reduces year on year and the repayments become a lesser percentage of income so you can start increasing your equity and building up savings. Mortgage rates can go up as well as down, however.

I haven’t addressed the issue of shared-ownership because Monika has given all the health warnings, but I think shared ownership can work for some people if they integrate it within their long-term housing plans with a target exit date. Not all parts of the country experience the same price trajectory as London and the South East so it can provide price stability while people build up their savings to increase their equity or move out to a wholly-owned home. Each case will have its own factors to take into consideration so there is no blanket answer for everyone. I certainly think it is better than paying a high rent to a landlord for ever with little security of tenure. I share Malcolm’s reservations over benefits payments: they are not guaranteed to last forever, and the eligibility criteria can be changed at any time, so it is probably not a good idea to base the economics of one’s housing accommodation at the outset on state subsidies.