First-time buyers may be the losers in shared equity scheme | Money | The Guardian

First-time buyers may be the losers in shared equity scheme | Money | The Guardian

Thousands of homeowners may have overpaid for new flats bought using government shared equity schemes, according to a report.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) claims that government interventions in the housing market "make another lost decade of market stagnation more likely".

Under the HomeBuy Direct scheme, the government and a housing developer jointly fund a loan of 30% of the cost of a property, so that the purchaser only needs to pay a mortgage on 70% of the value. The government allocated £300m to the scheme for 2009-2011. It was intended to provide help for households earning £60,000 or less who could not otherwise afford to buy a property.