First time buyers are fundamental to sustaining the whole market (view them as the load-bearing card in a house of cards) yet many are priced out of markets in our cathedral cities, urban hotspots and the SE, so surely the Homes for All strategy is a winner? Or is it?

Here at Square Foot, we’re not entirely convinced. In our view, the need for affordable housing cannot be wholly eased by offering the socially and financially disadvantaged a part share in a restrictive housing incentive. The Deputy Prime Minister announced this February that 300,000 families in housing association or council property are to be allowed to buy a minimum stake of 50% in their homes. Under the “Homebuy” plan, council and housing association tenants will be offered discount of up to £16,000 to buy a share in their property. When they leave they will be able to sell their stake at a price agreed by an independent valuer. But (here’s the catch) the housing associations will have the first call to buy back the property.

In many ways, a part share scheme which forces a co-owner to sell back his/her share to a nominated shareholder is like offering a thirsty man a drink from a cup with a hole in it. As Ray Boulger from Charcol Mortgages points out, how can you ensure market value is achieved at point of sale via such an arrangement?

There may be no real panacea for our nation’s housing shortage but is a share of a property which can never come to the open market better than a share of nothing at all? I suspect that it fosters delusions of ownership with none of the actual rewards. Suppose you invest 50% in a £100k one-bed apartment under this new scheme and you stay in it for 2 years. Let’s imagine that in those 24 months the market value of the property increases by 12%. Upon resale you would be due your initial stake of £50k plus a theoretical split of the £12k profit. But who is going to argue your corner in determining market value – certainly not the housing association? So you could walk away feeling truly yentzed. More a case of bye-bye than Homebuy.

“Housing association tenants would be told who they can and cannot sell their share of the property to and be forced to ask permission to make any home improvements; hardly home ownership,” comments Caroline Spelman, the shadow local government minister. Quite. Surely first time buyers need every cent they can make from a rising market in order to move on up? Denying first time buyers receipt of true profit share strikes me as faux socialism and a mechanism for keeping residents locked into subsidised housing.

As if this big brother approach was not enough, the Government is to launch a competition for contractors to build a home for £60,000. Can it be done? Many in the industry think not.

Some 80,000 of these low-cost starter homes will be built on public land by 2010, including 100 former NHS sites. (Sounds good so far.) The quango, English Partnerships, will offer 30% of these houses for a target price of £60,000. (Still sounds ok.) Half of these homes will be offered to key workers in equity stakes of 10%. English Partnerships will retain a 40% stake in the property until the buyers pay off the full cost. (English Partnerships? I thought they were a regeneration agency? What do they know about affordability issues?) Let’s not hold our collective breath.