Co-Ownership?

motorguy

Also bear in mind how quickly house prices are going up in northern ireland. i bought a house for 42K three years ago, thats now worth 150. if i had bought that on co-ownership on a 50/50 deal and was trying to buy the other half now, i'd have paid 24K for the first half, and 75K for the other, completely negating any savings there would have been by not buying it myself in the first place.

crispqueen

Hi and thanks for the replies! Does nobody on here like the idea of co-ownership or am I imagining it?:rolleyes:
I would really appreciate an answer to the question I started with -

Does anyone know when the co-ownership review will come into place?

NAR

Sorry crispqueen I don't know the answer either.

However Paul has a very valid point. which you need to consider carefully. Co-ownership may seem your only option now, but you need to realise the future potential implications. If you buy a house valued at £150k now (£75k approx to you); in three years time that house is likely to be worth at least £250k (£125k approx to you to buy out).

It may be that you have no choice, and sincerely I don't envy anyone trying to get on the ladder, but you also need to be aware at least of potential costs ahead. Good luck.

leftieM

I had a quick look and I couldn't find a date for publication of the final report. The interim report was published last month so, as the review was undertaken in September, I am guessing that the final report won't be published before April.
Of interest to you may be the following paragraph taken from the interim review:

Uptake of the Northern Ireland Co-ownership Housing Association product has reduced recently. Consideration should be given to extending or abolishing co-ownership housing value limits, to the scope for reducing the current rent level (2.75%) and to entry to the scheme at a lower level. The Northern Ireland Co-ownership Housing Association might be permitted to purchase on a rolling basis a stock of homes for selling through co-ownership.

crispqueen

Thanks again for the replies. I do know what your getting at as far as making the right financial decision.
I was hoping the review comes into force on 1st March but might have to wait a bit longer.
On the topic of making the right decision etc., do you not think that its better to own something of a property rather than nothing if the figures all add up to paying the same or just slightly more than renting only?
I wont be making any hasty decisions - a bit too long in the tooth for that -anyway I`ll see what happpens and if any of you helpful people hear anything in the grapevine, please let me know.Cheers x

leftieM

You could ring up and ask about the review.
I found some info here.
I know that if there was a small differential between renting and co-owning, I would go for it, as long as I could comfortably afford the repayments.

crispqueen

Thanks Leftie - though I had read most of that already,and when I phoned up I was told they didnt know what date the changes would come about. Though reading somewhere else it said March...will see what happens anyway - there`s a house just on the market a week and we were really hoping to go for it - but we know from past experiences it`ll either be agreed before we get to it or it`ll have offers on it way outta our league.
So fed up with the rise in house prices like a whole lot of other people:(

leftieM

What goes up must come down....or at least stabilise!

motorguy

leftieM wrote:

What goes up must come down....or at least stabilise!

... or continue to go up like dublin or mainland uk....

leftieM

NAR wrote:

However Paul has a very valid point. which you need to consider carefully. Co-ownership may seem your only option now, but you need to realise the future potential implications. If you buy a house valued at £150k now (£75k approx to you); in three years time that house is likely to be worth at least £250k (£125k approx to you to buy out).

Just to add that the flip side of this is that if you buy nothing now and wait, based on the above scenario, you would have to spend 250k rather than 200k for the same house.
Lets be honest, you can't blame someone for being desperate to get a house now when prices are continuing to rise and look like doing so for the forseeable future. Also co-ownership offers security of tenure which you're not going to get from a private landlord.