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Housing

Shared ownership and shared equity: reducing the risks of home-ownership?

This Viewpoint argues that shared ownership and shared equity schemes could reduce the risks associated with home-ownership

Written by:
Christine Whitehead
Date published:

Shared ownership and shared equity schemes are seen as a way of increasing home-ownership, but these policies have been implemented in a way that increases the risks to home-owners and often fails to make home-ownership any more sustainable.

Christine Whitehead of London School of Economics and Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, University of Cambridge, argues that these products do have the potential to reduce the risks of home-ownership and allow more households to become owner-occupiers in a sustainable manner. Key areas for reform include:

  • a simplified, standardised product;
  • re-enabling shared equity on existing homes;
  • more transparent regulation and subsidy; and
  • the development of a better resale market for shared ownership and shared equity products.
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