Shared Ownership Schemes

lucy_w86

My partner and I are looking into the shared ownership schemes. He earns £22,000 and I earn £21,000.

It is impossible for us to buy on the open market.

Can anyone recommend this?

Moorepart

How much do you think a 'shared ownership' flat will be worth in a correction/crash? Who's going to buy one if they can afford to buy a flat themselves? Hint: ****** all is probably a good guess.:rolleyes:

There's nothing positive I can really see about shared equity. It comes from the current climate of fear that the first rung of the ladder is slowly getting harder and harder to step on to, therefore there's a mad dash to get something. Unfortunately, if you can't afford just now, rising prices will mean that you'll never be able to afford the 60% or what ever% you don't own, or whatever it is. The only possible situation where this could benefit is the real terms-only crash, IMHO, but even then, I think it will result in a correction that will enable most people to buy houses.

It's been said many times by many other posters here - Buy low, sell high. What's so difficult about that concept for some people to grasp?

gabyjane

moorepart what a usefull reply..:rolleyes: honestly some people on this site!
Anyway to the op, we are about to purchase a SO house which has been valued at £165k we would for a house of that price on our income of £35k be paying well over £1000 per month for it whch is ridiculas not to mention the deposit, in fact we just wouldn't get anywhere near buying it!!
We are buying 50% and it's £400 per month mortgage and £150 rent, every year we can buy another minimum 10% and so on, effectivly we hope to be paying for the whole thing in at least 5 years or sooner if we come into money..
There is nowhere where we live that isn't around the £130k mark which are terrible and i wouldn't house us in and that leaving us no option to buy this, tbh it's a gorgeous brand new home and perfect for us, much bigger than most open market homes and at the end of the day people who buy 'full price' homes may not be able to pay off the entire amount, you never know what's going to happen in the future do you? I'm chuffed to bits with ours and can't wait to move!!

inch_high

joint income of £43000, why cant you buy outright? You could get around the £150000-£210000 depending on your current outgoings

Bargain_Rzl

Although I'm writing from the POV of somebody who already has a SO flat, I try not to "recommend" it as such, as everybody's circumstances are different.

To the OP I would say: don't write off the idea of renting. How much would it cost to rent somewhere suitable? If it's comparable with the cost of SO, you may be better off renting as you then have flexibility as regards moving on, and don't have service charges or maintenance costs.

Buying is not the be-all and end-all.

However in my case (and I seem to have posted this about six times in the past week) my SO flat works out easily £200 a month cheaper than renting, and equally £200 a month cheaper than buying (that's including factoring in the service charge). In my circumstances, that £200 makes the difference between being financially fairly comfortable - being able to put aside money for contingencies and the future as well as having an active social life and good standard of living - and having to scrimp and save all the time and leaving myself in quite a precarious financial situation. Speaking only for myself, I would have been daft not to buy my SO flat.

lucy_w86

inch_high wrote: »

joint income of £43000, why cant you buy outright? You could get around the £150000-£210000 depending on your current outgoings

We would only get lent about 95,000 - 130,000 MAX...

I have looked at what the mortgage would be on that as well as if we ever did get lent 150,000 and you are looking at repayments of £750 - £1,000 a month

SO reduces this and we would be paying a lot less

Plus my partner owes his Dad £8K and has a £3K loan to pay off

Currently, I am the only one able to save

hollyblue

I bought my 50% share of a SO property 8 years ago.

I have never had any intention of buying the other half of my property as it was always meant to be the first rung on the ladder, however, with the way house prices have gone up I've been unable to move up yet.

But I consider that whatever happens to the property market there will always be a group of people, that because of their earnings, will not be able to purchase a 'whole' house and because SO is quite scarce (well it certainly is in my area - don't know about others) it will always hold its own in terms of desirability.

If nothing else its 100 times more secure than purely renting.

Overall I say SO is a win win!