Shared Ownership: Satisfying Ambitions for Homeownership?

The extent to which models of subsidised homeownership fulfil the purchasers’ ambitions for homeownership is poorly understood in relation to the UK, where the shared ownership - part rent/part buy – model dominates. Homeownership remains highly aspirational and central to much housing policy, but remains beyond the reach of many households. Consequently subsidised access to the tenure is apparent in many countries with various restraints attached on the use and exchange rights that relate to the property. The purpose of the paper is to suggest that we should think more critically about the components of tenure and how these are configured in hybrid models of ownership and renting, and how, or if, these configurations sufficiently fulfil expectations of ownership. The paper concludes that partial ownership provides purchasers with opportunities to demonstrate they are not Bauman's ‘flawed consumers’, but that these psychosocial benefits may, consciously or otherwise, mask the attributes of the form of occupancy and ownership that are less well aligned with traditional homeownership, such as the control over the management and exchange of the home and assets. The paper contends that the extent to which, and how, shared ownership fulfils expectations of ownership now and over the long term remains an empirical question for the research community to explore further.