Marketing Shared ownership House

fassam

Hi all,

About 5 years ago we bought 60% of a shared ownership house in east London. We are about to try and sell our share and wondered if anyone had any experience/tips on selling a shared ownership property?

While in many ways its a nice problem to have, the property has become quite valuable and is most likely now too expensive for those usually looking for shared ownership properties. In fact in our borough its stuck in a catch 22 of having a minimum income to buy higher than the maximum income to be on the council housing list (one of the purchase requirements). However, as the rent on the unowned share has been controlled for 15 years it is now very low on the unowned share - in some respects it's a bit of a bargain.

Being a 3 bed family home with a garden in zone 2, it could be a great property for the right people and allow a family who would otherwise be looking at flats to get extra space, but I'm concerned that the right people won't find it. Especially as we have to give the housing association 2 months to try and find someone (something they have said they don’t expect to be able to do).

Grateful for any views from those with experience reselling shared properties. Thanks.

K1RST1E_2

Hi Fassam,

I can' t offer any advice on experience but I too am in the same position. My husband and I own a 50% share in our home which we purchased back in 2007. We have had the house valued and we are going to take a hit on it. We bought our share for £81,500 and will be marketing it at around £77,500 to start with.

The HA we are with are no help at all so you are quite lucky that they are willing to help find a buyer for the first two months of selling. I personally think shared ownerships are a specialist area so you want the house to be marketed in places that target people looking for this type of purchase hence why I asked our HA what help they could/ would provide. The answer was none!

We will be selling our house as a shared ownership through a normal estate agents so it appears on all the online avenues of buying/ selling a house. I have also found a local website which works with HA's that deals with shared ownership resales so am hoping to have it advertised on there too.

I think all we can do is market it in the usual way and hope that we get interest from first time buyers who are in the same position as we were 6 years ago. It's a case of seeing what happens.

Good luck.

richardw

Is your share worth more than £250,000?

fassam

Thanks both,

It is worth over £250,000 yes. Those are good idea for marketing.

richardw

That's more than £7,500 in stamp duty that may put some buyers off.

Does your HA require an independent chartered surveyor valuation and not an Estate Agent valuation?

jonas123

I bought our current shared ownership scheme; 50% at over £250,000...!

Same situation as yours really, it seemed pretty expensive and had to sink the 3% stamp duty which hurt, but it's in such a good location and couldn't afford to buy outright anything in the area.

A bit nervous about how it might pan out when I come to sell. When we bought, an independant RICS surveyor valued it and that was the price. The identical flat next door sold a few days after I completed for £75k more than my mine, although that had been staircased to 100% so was on the open market.

Would be interested to see how you get on!