Pros & Cons of shared ownership

sharonfrancis

Hello
Was wondering if any of you could give advice on the pros & cons of shared ownership.

It seems that you need a healthy deposit nowadays to purchase a house - 20K for a 100K property.

Not sure I will ever be in a position to come up with 20K.
Just wondered whether shared ownership could work for me.

Let me know your experiences - how much do you need to layout at the start? Are they value for money? etc

[Deleted User]

If you can't afford to buy.., shared ownership is an option but in my experience its an expensive option. By the time we'd paid the rent on the 50% share we didn't own and service charges, it was far more expensive than a 100% mortgage. But of course, we couldn't get a mortgage for 100% of any property elsewhere lol!

Also be careful as to where the property is located.., in our case we bought a house on the edge of a bad estate and it was a major mistake. Surrounded by high rise blocks and we'd get accosted by yobbos wanting to 'charge' us for using their estate when we tried to leave by car by the only road out of the estate. No fun at all.

This is of course, just my experience.., other people will have different ones I am sure. I'd never do it again though.

quintwins

we looked at co-ownership (thats the n.i scheme) and it did seem like a good idea because they pay the fee's for you and you don't have a big outlay, but it can be a real pain when you come to sell if you havent bought the other half pack which our friends are now goings threw now, as they decided 2 years ago they just had to jump on the property ladder no matter what now they have a family and need a bigger house and there not allowe to rent it out

poppysarah

If you can't save a deposit it probably means that you aren't rich enough to buy a house. Sadly house prices are very high which has led to the insane idea of letting people buy half a house rather than just letting house prices fall.


One of the SO schemes is looking to sell on it's shared equity loan book. Which to me stinks of splitting up and selling on the subprime loans which was also clearly an indication someone was looking to shift potential bad debt.