Offered a Shared Ownership flat - good idea?

Sally22_2

Another plus for SO here. We have a 2 bedroom house built in 2002 (ours was a resale) which full market price would have been 200k. We bought 40% and its been fab so far although we only bought in July 13. We would never have been able to buy a house if we were buying 100% of somewhere, we would have had to get a flat plus have a bigger deposit.

Only you can work out what you are looking for in a property, personally I love Brighton and think it would be fab living there, only you can prioritize what you would like though!

I know when we bought our house there were lots of people interested including some friends of the family which we didnt know until we had moved in! Also where we have bought is quite a quiet village but near to a main town, apparently a sought after location. Just to put it into perspective the other houses that were built at the same time as ours in the same development in 2002 are all detached and were sold for 350kish and now worth 500k+. So not worried about selling on in the future! I think Brighton would always be a sought after location personally..

The only bad thing was that there were a lot of hoops to jump through as (in our case) we had to have a meeting with someone from the HA and go through our finances etc. Plus find a solicitor that has dealt with SO before. And also try to find a mortgage provider who has offered SO mortgages before too. We are with Nationwide and it was quite painless applying.

If it helps we are in the South East (outside M25 though) and our HA is L&Q

Oh the only other 'tip' I had was to buy as low amount as possible. If you buy 80% you may find it harder to sell on for example compared to if you own 40%. If you are trying to sell 80% of a property worth 200k the buyer would almost need the same deposit/income etc as would be needed for 100% so they may not be interested in SO whereas someone wanting 40% would need a lot less deposit and income multiples. Hope you see what im trying to get at here!

Any questions feel free to ask/PM

Jonny_Debt

Thanks again for your replies - it is really helping me. Good to hear some positive stories about the shared ownership for new builds scheme. I think we are now going to concentrate on looking at as many properties as possible to see what we could get buying 100% of an older property vs the shared ownership flat.

Can we look round properties without getting a mortgage agreement in principle first?

Thanks!

Kynthia

Just remember that many people with shared ownership experience the downsides when trying to sell or rent it out because their curcumstances change. So it's usually not for those who can afford to buy a suitable sized property in an area they can get work, but for those who would be forced to move away or rent. Also if you do consider it, take a look at resales as although not shiny and new they hold their value better.

aileth

Kynthia wrote: »

Just remember that many people with shared ownership experience the downsides when trying to sell or rent it out because their curcumstances change. So it's usually not for those who can afford to buy a suitable sized property in an area they can get work, but for those who would be forced to move away or rent. Also if you do consider it, take a look at resales as although not shiny and new they hold their value better.

Definitely agree, actually selling it on is the difficulty. We are quite happy where we are now and have no plans to move.

However, our neighbour's house (the smallest on the estate) has been on the market for probably almost a year now, they have had to move out due to changing circumstances and cannot shift it despite constant reductions, and this is with a HA that doesn't control resell!

Jonny_Debt

Going to see another flat at the edge tomorrow - we will see how we get on but we are thinking an older property would suite us better. It is really difficult though not to fall for the convenience of a new build flat!