Shared Ownership

leewoods

Hi,

thanks for the replies, promotion is guarenteed, plus a percentage payrise each year, but we want to get an house together before xmas, and we stumbled upon Shared Ownership and thought it would suit our needs perfectly. We're going to have saved up about £1500-£2000 maybe more to cover the moving in costs. I'm trying to find out the rent on the other half of the properties, they seem to swing wildly from £150 up to £300 -- without the mortgage!

izoomzoom

Hi

We have been looking at SO for nearly two years now. There seems to be nothing over the winter months and then only a few in the summer months. Must just be the area that we are looking in.

Anyway, twice we have been turned down for a three bedroom place, and come Monday are looking at another place. Both turn downs were with different HA and Mondays viewing is a 3rd HA.

Wanted to know what criteria is being used to select people. I fully understand that different HA would have a different selection processes) but would so like to know where we are going wrong.

We both work, have two same sex children in close proximity age wise.

We have looked at two bed places, but all have been smaller than our existing two bed rented place and what is the point of moving for that ?

Wish us luck, please, we so need it.

lynzpower

where abouts in the country are you looking?

Have you registed for resales as well as new ones?

suki1964

With my sale they matched it to people who actually had the money to pay outright for the improvements we had made, plus being able to make the mortgage payments. Then it was narrowed down to public sector workers first, followed by HA tennants freeing up rented accomadation, council tennants then private tennants. It was sold to a couple in their 50's both NHS workers living in private rented accomadation

izoomzoom

We are looking in Herts, Beds and Cambs - within 25 miles of our works.

We have registered for both new and resale (the latter are more affordable) properties with all the HA that operate in our area..

We are not key workers and are not trying for any of those exclusive properties (and there are quite a few) and we are only going with what we can afford. So what is wrong with us.

Also the 2 houses we are looking at on Monday were ready 2.5 months ago - it has taken that long for the HA to get the keys. Prelude to their efficiency ?

lynzpower

I think patience is needed when buying / dealing with SO. It took over 7 months for me to get mine adn it was chain free both sides. I was going spare.

Although HIPS are coming in soon, so they will have to be organised before they place on the market. so thats goiod

suki1964

izoomzoom wrote:

We are looking in Herts, Beds and Cambs - within 25 miles of our works.

We have registered for both new and resale (the latter are more affordable) properties with all the HA that operate in our area..

We are not key workers and are not trying for any of those exclusive properties (and there are quite a few) and we are only going with what we can afford. So what is wrong with us.

Also the 2 houses we are looking at on Monday were ready 2.5 months ago - it has taken that long for the HA to get the keys. Prelude to their efficiency ?

Theres nothing wrong with you - just you are possibly chasing the same properties as a couple of hundred other people

When I put mine up for sale the HA had 8000 people on their lists, 600 were eligable to view ours of which we had around 20 viewings and of those 12 people expressed interest. One young couple had been doing the rounds for two years

Is there no way you can save for a bigger deposit and buy on the open market? Shared ownership isnt always the best way to get on the "housing ladder", if house prices continue to rise buying the other share may always be out of your reach and any equity you have on your share may not be enough to raise a big enough mortgage to move on

izoomzoom

Hello again

We viewed a house this week which we expressed an interest in. There were only three other couples looking at the time, although I understand that maybe upto two other couples had viewed last week also.

Anyway, in the long wait for my husband to arrive, I was interested to discover that the HA allocates on the basis of council housing association tenants, then waiting period (amongst others I am sure, but these seem to be the most important) and the HA person said that none of us were tenants, so it boils down to how long you have been on their register.

Officially we have the least time on the waiting list, because we nearly bought another place last year with another HA and consequently removed ourselves from their list. However we pulled out of the sale and did not realise that we were no longer registered with this HA until quite recently. Thing is, if you take into account when we first applied, we are by far the longest waiting people.

I did make sure that they knew about our original application date (and I have evidence of this that I have verbally advised them of) and I know that none of you can answer for us, but what do you think of the chance that the HA will take our original application into consideration rather than our recent one. We were probably off their register for about a year.

They were going to make a decision almost immediately but have now delayed this to next week to confirm the decisiion with colleagues.

I so want to hope, but so don't want to be disappointed !!