Owning your own home

The TL;DR is that you are renting a home but you are liable for all the repairs and expenses that you wouldn't be if you were renting a normal home. And like renting a home, you have a landlord and if you don't pay your rent, you can be evicted and lose your home. You might think that's no different to having a mortgage, but you have one of those too.

The landlord will invariably be a housing association and, although in theory they are better than a council, the reality is they are bad landlords. They take as much as they can from you, and deliver as little as possible. Any time you need to do business with them, they will charge you too much for too little. They place all sorts of bullshit conditions on you until you own 100% (and then they'll get you for increased ground rent to make up for their loss of income).

The homes are leasehold, and leasehold is bad. You think it's OK when you are young and need a place, but as you learn more you realise it's a shit show that's in desperate need of reform.

It's also common to embed SO homes in developments that include a large amount of social housing, and I know it's not hugely popular on here to say it, but fuck me, council tenants can be absolute fuckers in a way owner occupiers cannot be. And there will be at least one.

The upside is that the deposit you put down appreciates if the price of housing goes up. But it also can depreciate or stagnate if house prices stall or go down.

Even in good times, the market for 'used' shared ownership homes is limited, so if you can't buy the thing out before it comes to sell, you might be waiting a long long time.

In 2005 when I bought, there was no doubt prices were rocketing up. And since, they have never gone down, only stalled.

But now, bets might be off - you have pandemic and Brexit at play.

That said, if its your only option, try it, you might get lucky. I did OK, but I would have done infinitely better had I bought a house in Stratford for pennies at the time.