The HomeOwner Survey 2019 - Concerns, trends and how we feel about our homes

Help to Buy is a good idea (typical selected verbatim comments) Help to Buy is a bad idea (typical selected verbatim comments) Helps young people get on the housing ladder. Help to Buy is good in principle, but in practice has been abused by developers. House buyers have over-charged on houses, often poorly built houses at that. Additionally, there is issue of house buyers being manipulated into buying leasehold properties and having to make on-going payments to leaseholders, particularly if they want to make changes to the property. Leaseholds are a money making exercise for developers and those who use Help to Buy are not always in a position to understand on-going commitments and hassle leaseholds involve. Supports those who cannot raise a full deposit. It mostly helps people who need help less. It makes house buying available to people who would not otherwise be able to get on the housing ladder. The problem is cost of ownership of a home - all these schemes merely continue to support an overinflated property market. Difficult to pay rent and save a big enough deposit to buy for first time buyers, so ‘Help to Buy’ is a big help to them. Merely increases house prices by subsidising certain people. Most of the gains go to housebuilding firms. Helps new home owners get a house they can afford without having to pay a crazy mortgage rate. Government is clearly partly responsible for the housing bubble. Prices need to be allowed to fall to sustainable market levels. It opens up other possibilities where it can be difficult to get off the renting market. Artificially increases prices of new builds. Puts people in a debt trap when they have to pay back the government loan component Younger people have the chance to get on the property ladder, not throwing money away on rent. Prices have been put up because of this without increasing supply. Builders, developers, estate agents are benefitting. It's a scam. Helps the first time buyer into the market, gives an incentive to builders to build. Enabling builders to artificially raise house prices and is main reason builders are making excessive profits. Helps young people get on the housing ladder. The lack of social housing is a major problem. The deposit is a big problem for many first time buyers, so this is a way around this. I previously had Help to Buy and it was never explained to me properly and now I have saved enough money to be able to pay it off. Everyone tells you it’s an interest free loan however no one tell you u have to pay back 15% of the value of the house when getting out of it so I borrowed £18,000 and paid back with all the fees attached £22,000. I would have been better taking out a bank loan for the said figure with less interest.