Kind help for FTB on shared ownership & buying

Hillbilly2

Running_Horse wrote: »

Look at the room layout and come back saying that is 2 bedrooms.

One of them is 4 foot 6 inches wide!

Research where train lines go and where you can get good value.

Dartford would be a safe bet to begin home ownership.

And ? Many in London would be happy with that as a second bedroom!

Hillbilly2

citricsquid wrote: »

1. More difficult to sell than a normal property
2. Dependency on a housing association, they're often slow
3. Limited choice of mortgages, you'll pay a higher mortgage rate
4. Rent + mortgage will probably add up to more than just a mortgage if owned outright
5. 100% responsibility for maintenance but you don't get 100% of the reward
6. Prices on shared ownership can often be inflated

If you're desperate to live in a specific area and want long term security but can't afford to purchase a property that meets your needs outright then shared ownership can be a viable option, but you will pay more for that and you will sacrifice flexibility. For me the cost isn't worth it, but for you it might be.

Very well put!


Even in a busy market they are slow to sell and the majority have a no sub-letting clause. Therefore if you need to move quickly the property can hold you back.


Theres also a thread on here about parking permits and that you can't get one from a SO property... For London then I would avoid.


Moving further out would help - if not Dartford then Beckenham?

AubreyMac

Thank you all.

It's a really difficult time as my main issue is that there's not much on the market. I think with my 192k budget it is possible to get somewhere decent but it seems nobody is moving/selling at the moment and when something nice comes on the market there's so much interest in it that it's sold for more than it's asking price.

I'm fortunate that I don't HAVE to move by a deadline but the fast increasing house prices scare me. A part of me believes the house prices is bound to come down as it doesn't reflect the reality of salaries but then again, in london there'll probably always be more demand than supply.

A lot of new builds are being brought off plan too.

Beckenham would be nice but it's the same situation that not much is on the market.

Oh I just don't know what my options are.:(

RoxieW

citricsquid wrote: »

1. More difficult to sell than a normal property
2. Dependency on a housing association, they're often slow
3. Limited choice of mortgages, you'll pay a higher mortgage rate
4. Rent + mortgage will probably add up to more than just a mortgage if owned outright
5. 100% responsibility for maintenance but you don't get 100% of the reward
6. Prices on shared ownership can often be inflated

If you're desperate to live in a specific area and want long term security but can't afford to purchase a property that meets your needs outright then shared ownership can be a viable option, but you will pay more for that and you will sacrifice flexibility. For me the cost isn't worth it, but for you it might be.

Have you experience as a shared ownership purchaser? I have bought and sold shared ownership and it worked out well for us. In response to these points from my experience-

1- We sold our SO within days (sale later fell through) and then 2 months. We are not in London and this was last summer before the recent boom - the sale time was much quicker than non SO properties on our road as buyers are desperate for an affordable housing option. However, the HA does put conditions on potential buyers but ours were pretty easy to fulfil - you will find these out when you apply anyway
2- We didn't find that to be the case with our HA. W lived in the house for 9 yrs and never had any dealings with them until we came to sell.
3- We were on a 0.5% rate when we sold.
4- Our mort plus rent totalled approx £400 for a 3 bed property. The smaller 2 bed next door was consistently rented out at £500 a month. And we bought at the top of the market in 2004
5 - Not sure about this one. Our example is that we bought for 60k at the market peak and sold for £62.5k in a lower market, but improvements had been made ie new kitchen and bathroom. You could argue that if, for example, improvements made added £10k to the full property value you would only see a return of 5k, but in a fluxtuating market its hard to pinpoint what, if any, value these improvements add, unless there was no functioning Kitchen bathroom it's often argued that you don't make a profit on these additions anyway. If you decide to staircase on a property to 100% then the HA deducts the value of improvements from the valuation, so that you're not, in effect, paying for improvements twice.
6- Not the case, as a mortgage valuation will soon put right any inflated price tag compared to similar 100% properties.

Our experience is that SO allowed us to buy a nice property in a nice area, that we would have been unable to afford otherwise. We spent a happy 9 yrs in our property and had no issues through the buying or selling process.

barbiedoll

My sister lives in Dartford and works in Camberwell and her journey to work is an hour, door-to-door.

My feeling would be that it is better to own a whole property a little further out than to own half of a property nearer to work. (Although you will have to budget for larger fares.) As your wages increase, your prospects of "upgrading" will do also and to be honest, you are searching in some relatively expensive areas, Bromley for example, can be very expensive, even in the Downham area.

Sidcup is full of old people, Eltham is ok in parts but you want to be near the station, Bexleyheath/Welling aren't too bad but you won't have the "cachet" of a London postcode. You should definitely stick to areas on the Victoria line though, you don't want to have to change trains at London Bridge, that is not going to be possible for a while!

AubreyMac

barbiedoll wrote: »

My sister lives in Dartford and works in Camberwell and her journey to work is an hour, door-to-door.

My feeling would be that it is better to own a whole property a little further out than to own half of a property nearer to work. (Although you will have to budget for larger fares.) As your wages increase, your prospects of "upgrading" will do also and to be honest, you are searching in some relatively expensive areas, Bromley for example, can be very expensive, even in the Downham area.

Sidcup is full of old people, Eltham is ok in parts but you want to be near the station, Bexleyheath/Welling aren't too bad but you won't have the "cachet" of a London postcode. You should definitely stick to areas on the Victoria line though, you don't want to have to change trains at London Bridge, that is not going to be possible for a while!

Thanks.

Am I right in thinking that commuting to/from dartford is not covered by a london travel pass?

With regards to looking in bromley, on rightmove I put in an area and have a radius of 5 miles and see what comes up within my budget.

If I did move further out, it's a requirement that I am as close to the station as possible. Although I have a car, I can't drive on motorways or dual carriageways, it's a phobia!

Where I work, there are offices in camberwell (main office where I'm based) and also in London bridge. Occassionally I'm required to go to london bridge but if I want to progress career wise, being based at london bridge is a possibility so I'll be looking with the mind of a direct train to london bridge.

Running_Horse

Hillbilly2 wrote: »

And ? Many in London would be happy with that as a second bedroom!

LOL. That was the main bedroom. Putting an angled partition down the middle of a one bed flat does not make it two bedrooms. And anyway, Lewisham is a dump.

Less than an hour away £200,000 will buy you a three bed freehold semi in a good area. That may not be suitable for the OP, but is better than falsely claiming they can buy two beds in Central London.

Hillbilly2

Running_Horse wrote: »

LOL. That was the main bedroom. Putting an angled partition down the middle of a one bed flat does not make it two bedrooms. And anyway, Lewisham is a dump.

Less than an hour away £200,000 will buy you a three bed freehold semi in a good area. That may not be suitable for the OP, but is better than falsely claiming they can buy two beds in Central London.

Each to his own? For some that property will be ideal, and a 3 bed further away is not for them. FYI Lewisham is not and never will be "Central London"...

pcgtron

AubreyMac wrote: »

Anymore help on this please?

I'm searching on rightmove each day, the ones within my budget aren't very desireable. There doesn't seem to be much on the market anyway.

There is not much on the market at the moment in your price range in London not because lots of houses and flats are not up for sale but they are moving so quickly, many of them don't even make it onto right move in London.

Your best bet is to go into lots of estate agents and let them know you're looking to buy. That way, you get a chance to see places before they go on right move. Many places in London in your price range are being snapped up within days.