Mortgages for Social Homebuy Scheme

AdKM

Hi all,

We are in the process of buying a 100% share of the Housing Association flat that we currently live in through the Social Homebuy Scheme and wanted to share our experience so far.

It is definitely good advice to follow Martin's advice and try lenders directly in addition to speaking to brokers. We got two good quotes from two excellent brokers, but an even much better deal direct via the Halifax. There are only a handful of lenders to the best of our knowledge who will lend for this scheme. The one that came out best for us is the Halifax.

Through a broker we would have had to pay fees and stamp duty. Via the direct route we were offered a fee free mortgage on the same terms the brokers found for us and told that the Halifax would pay the stamp duty. That's a pretty huge difference and we are delighted that we followed the mortgage advice on this site :T.

kingstreet

The SDLT products are also available via brokers. It's possible the brokers did the quotes before the product was launched last week. The rates are exactly the same, they have simply had the cashback added to them.

We had several clients with applications in to Halifax and we changed them so they got the same rate as before, but got about £1,700 cashback on top.

If you are staircasing upto 100% ownership, you don't have to use an affordable housing product, so you should have a much wider lender base to choose from.

kingstreet

You may not have seen this;-

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4576113

AdKM

You are correct. It does look like a new product that the broker wouldn't have had access to a couple of weeks ago.

That said the Halifax also got us a different and better quote on the same day as the brokers did back then.

As far as I am aware, even if you buy a 100% share under the Social Homebuy Scheme, there are still only several lenders to choose from. This is what we were told by both the Housing Association and the 2nd broker we saw. We were told we could go 'whole of the market' should we wish to remortgage at a later date.

Of course you may well have more accurate information.

kingstreet

Hang on. Are you sure you qualify for this? It's a FTB only product. Do you currently own a part of the property, or none of it?

AFAIK the FTB stamp duty product was rolled out to the whole network on 30 April. It wasn't available before from any source. If it had been, it would have been mentioned on here.

I don't know why the brokers didn't mention it to you, perhaps because they also don't think you qualify for it.

AdKM

What does the acronym 'FTB' mean?

The person at Halifax we did the mortgage application with is definitely aware that we are buying from a HA through SHB. So I am assuming we do qualify, though I may have to now double check just to make sure.

Thanks, I think.

AdKM

I think i just twigged that FTB means 'First Time Buyer', which is indeed our status.

AdKM

I got the impression from the Halifax that the brokers were slightly off the pace with their latest products - despite them being 'all of the market' and 'able to source a mortgage deal for us from any provider right now'.

kingstreet

If you rent 100% of the property and own none of it and one of you has never owned a property before, you are a first time buyer.

When I read your opening post, I thought you owned a share and were purchasing the other portion, what is known as staircasing.

Did Halifax tell you about the stamp duty products before 30 April?

AdKM

kingstreet wrote: »

Did Halifax tell you about the stamp duty products before 30 April?

No. It was proactively offered to us today instead of the £500 cashback that was offered to us a couple of weeks ago. Fair play to them for doing that.

kingstreet

Yes. The cashback products were withdrawn on 30 April and replaced by the SDLT products instead.

I must confess I'm confused by the terminology you are using. Social Homebuy is Shared Ownership, where you purchase a share and rent the unowned portion, but you are suggesting you are buying 100%.

Is it shared equity, what used to be FirstBuy or Help To Buy, where your deposit is supplemented by a loan from the Government?