Increasing our share of shared ownership property

gazfocus

I completed on my shared ownership house about 15 months ago and I am now starting to think about what's going to happen when my 2 year fixed mortgage comes to an end.

When the fixed rate ends, I would like to add my wife's name to the mortgage and would like to increase the share that we own.

Will we need to raise another deposit to increase our share in the house? How does the whole process go as this is the first house I have owned.

lindsaygalaxy

As someon looking at shared ownership, unless you are looking to staircase to the full 100% I wouldnt go over 50/60% as in my opinion it makes it less desirable.

gazfocus

lindsaygalaxy wrote: »

As someon looking at shared ownership, unless you are looking to staircase to the full 100% I wouldnt go over 50/60% as in my opinion it makes it less desirable.

Hi, What do you mean?

We currently own 50% of the property and we'd like to staircase to 100% but obviously, this would depend on the mortgage we can get at the time, but 70% might be more realistic.

kingstreet

Typically, you'll need your equity to be over 10% of the total value of your share to get a 90% mortgage.

lindsaygalaxy

I wouldn't consider looking at a SO property that was on for 70% as if I could afford 70% I would probably keep on saving to own any property of choice on the open market. Especially as in this are (SE) SO properties are usually slightly more expensive.

It depends how long you are looking to stay in the house - is it a forever home?

That is just my thoughts.

brit1234

I would prefer to pay off a bigger chunk of the existing mortgage instead, that's if you want a easier time selling of what is a hard type property to sell.

gazfocus

lindsaygalaxy wrote: »

I wouldn't consider looking at a SO property that was on for 70% as if I could afford 70% I would probably keep on saving to own any property of choice on the open market. Especially as in this are (SE) SO properties are usually slightly more expensive.

It depends how long you are looking to stay in the house - is it a forever home?

That is just my thoughts.

If we were to buy a bigger chunk of the house, we would stay in the house until we owned 100%, or may even try to staircase to 100% right away.

brit1234 wrote: »

I would prefer to pay off a bigger chunk of the existing mortgage instead, that's if you want a easier time selling of what is a hard type property to sell.

Thanks. We are really in two minds to be honest.

On one hand, we like the house (note 'like' not 'love') and we have just spent quite a bit of money on it, new kitchen, stud wall to create a hallway and got a conservatory being built in a couple of weeks, but we don't see this house as our 'forever home'.

We don't know whether to buy more of the house, meaning we're paying less rent and paying off more of our mortgage, or keep the money in the bank with the view that if we keep the money in the bank, when we get fed up of this house, we're not relying on selling this house to buy another.

To be honest, if we'd not just had the new kitchen and conservatory, I'd be tempted to sell up and buy another house.

We're also mindful that one house on our street has been for sale for 15 months and in that time has dropped from £62k to £55k (for 50% share).