Shared ownership, what do you think?

purrsuede

The scheme is definitely gaining more & more popularity and ditching the myths attached to it, the number of shared ownership houses is on the rise too ( https://www.theplanner.co.uk/news/affordable-housing-delivery-on-the-up-%E2%80%93-statistics ), which is great for people who would otherwise have no way of getting on the property ladder, or who are stuck paying rent on a property they've no share in

a great new resource to check out re:
shared ownership is: https://propertybooking.co.uk/faqs , busts a few myths and lays everything out in an easy-to-follow manner

LNEWTON93

My input is a positive one.


Both I and my partner bought via the SO scheme (50%) with the plan never to staircase - nether of us were older than 21 and were struggling for space at parents. We didn't want to rent and instead put some of our savings money into an asset, albeit some would have been 'wasted'. We bought on a joint income of less than £30K a year with a deposit of £3.6K.


The house went up enough in a 3 year period to increase our personal equity by £10K. Obviously there is an additional element of capital repayment - but these are minimal, something like £3K.


Don't get my wrong my salary has increased significantly in this 3 year period (on the other hand we have had 2 babies), but with slightly more additional savings we managed to secure, and move into a 100% freehold property, with a 10% deposit of £21K just before Christmas last year.


If you feel property costs are on the rise in your area, you may be surprised just want benefits you can reap from buying S/O.


Good luck, and let me know how you get on.

the_quick

@Alleygator have you bought that property? Threat started in April '17

Just wonder if those who were in SO property, how was the sale? did it take long time? Trying to sell my flat, just put it on the market last week, so wonder.

HanPop

I only have positive things to say about the scheme. We bought our 3 bed new build end of terrace shared ownership property in 2013 (75% is ours) when there was nothing else we could afford around the same price that didn't need mountains doing to it. Since then the house price has increased by £35,000. I don't understand all of the negatives surrounding SO, we don't have to ask permission to 'decorate' only if you want an extension etc and my housing association let you staircase to 100% and legally have to give you the freehold immediately after final staircasing. The rent has gone up only minimally in all of the time I've been there (although I will say some HA's rent seems to increase a lot more than mine so I'd check out the HA you're considering thoroughly). Yes you do have 100% responsibility if the boiler etc goes but then you also reap the rewards from your share if the house price goes up.

I have heard that it can be a bit of a pain selling mainly due to the fact that the HA get 8 weeks to sell the house before you can put it on with an estate agent, but all of the ones on my estate have sold straight away when listed with the estate agent. We are in a fortunate position of currently buying the rest of the property as we have had an unexpected inheritance (and the HA have offered to pay all of our solicitor costs), however prior to this I was very happy with the property being SO.

marcy990

Hi all,

as this was started last year i was wanting to see if anyone has bought in Oxfordshire. I relocated last year and really want to get on the housing ladder. However, i have seen some very grotty flats for the prices that i can afford. (well at least be comfortable with) One 2 bed flat was 94 700 for a 50 per cent shared ownership. I thought brilliant, im going to look into this one, Then i read underneath that there was 375 PCM service charge not top of the rent.
Seriously, that was not a misprint. The flat is not in a central location and with no grounds to maintain either.
I checked with the estate agent and yes it was PCM. This is appalling so Im now looking at the old option of buying an old place to do up.

lena_halo

Buying a shared ownership flat was the best thing I ever did. I was single and fed up of house sharing and it was the only option at the time. Bought 40% share in a beautiful new build 2-bed Flat I could have never afforded otherwise.

Just recently sold the 40% share and now I have healthy equity to use on a new house with my partner. I never could have saved that much in the 5 years I had my flat. Very easy to sell too as there will always be people struggling to get on the ladder and this is a perfect way to take the first step. It does not have to always be about stair casing to 100%, in fact I wouldn’t recommend this unless it’s your forever home as it can be expensive and I personally think shared ownership should be kept as just that so that it remains an option for other people on lower incomes.

I’m happy that my flat was sold to a single girl just starting out like I was I had loads of interest (19 people applied for the flat!) so don’t worry about selling on in the future if you just keep your share and then want to move onto another property together later.

My HA was also really good, it’s worth doing your research on the HAs in your area.

datlex

My partner's dad has a shared ownership property. Mortgage is paid off. Yet even in his 80s he has to pay a rent on the other half of the property. Now there is the issue of who is responsible for the rent now he is in care (only just gone in). As well as whether my partner will be liable to pay the rent if he inherits it.

StaircaseSparrow

We purchased a shared ownership home 2 years ago. If we had waited and saved for a similar house freehold, house prices were growing faster than our savings and we would still be renting. Our house has increased in value by £40k. We get to keep £20k of it! We've also benefitted from living in a much bigger, modern home in a fantastic area. We are paying less per month than an equivalent home would cost to rent and we are gaining equity too by overpaying the mortgage.

The shared ownership scheme isn't perfect and we want to escape it asap, but it does have it's place in my opinion.

But...if you can afford to buy a home suitable for your needs for the next 5 years, buy freehold.

LittleBrambles

My son and his wife were expecting a baby and were desperate to get out of their rented tiny 1bed flat with significant damp. SO was their saving grace. Both are low earners and living in an expensive area meant ownership was really just a dream. They couldn't be more pleased with their new SO home and the HA was really very helpful. My son wrote a covering letter with the application and was later told that this was partly why his application was successful. There was a lot of interest in the house but it's down to the HA to decide who will live there, it's not always first come first served. I did try to find out information about the HA to see how they operated and what reputation they had, but this proved to be impossible so we just had to hope that they worked for the benefit of the occupiers and it seems they do. In an area of low wages and high house prices SO ticks a great many boxes.

rwareham

I'm in shared ownership and found it was the only way I could get onto the property ladder without a huge deposit.
You can still decorate to how you want it to be inside, it's just the outside they maintain. And you can staircase it when you would like to buy more of the property reducing the rent.

The only issue is, like anything else in the world - inflation. Rent can easily rise up, as well as the mortgage when you get to renew. So at least go for a standard 3/5yr fixed rate mortgage just to be safe, then it doesn't matter much if the rent rises. (It wouldn't rise significantly - in the 3 years I was living in the flat it rose £20 so not exactly breaking the bank).