Shared Ownerships ....whats your opinion

ixwood

SO was just a way of keeping the bubble going that bit longer (along with stupid salary multiples, 100/125% loans etc).

Nobody was really helped, they just got a 50% of a (overvalued) cardboard house/flat, with 100% of the maintanence, with all sorts of strings attached, instead of 100% of a real house they should have.

I wouldn't touch SO with a barge pole.

Give it a year or 2 and they might not even exist!

Bargain_Rzl

I live in a SO flat in London and have had a very positive experience, but I still think the majority of SO schemes are a bad idea, not in principle (it's actually a great idea in principle - especially for single people) but in practice, due to the serious overvaluing of newbuilds and the current precarious state of the market.

I decided to go for my flat because it itself was a particularly good deal; I had pretty much written off SO as an option prior to that.

I would not have bought an SO place if it hadn't been for the facts that:
- the market valuation of my flat was lower than pretty much ANY similarly proportioned property in the area, except those on really scummy estates
- my whole block is SO, rather than being shared with private owners, or council, or housing association rental. So we're all in a similar situation and I really do have good neighbours
- the market value came in under the stamp duty threshold (on account of being in a disadvantaged area
- it was an area I really wanted to live in, long term, and I have no plans to move. I now have savings which would back me up for several months if I were to lose my job, and I have insurance to protect against loss of earnings through long term illness.
- the monthly outgoings are lower than any equivalent property within reach of London, be it bought or rented (approx £595 a month inc service charges, as opposed to £800 rental in an area of London which has its problems but is within very easy reach of the centre)
- I had a decent deposit (10% of my owned portion) and my outgoings would still be manageable if interest rates DOUBLED. My mortgage on the share I own is less than twice my salary, and I hope to have it paid off in a few years.

As I have said many times before on here - SO has many disadvantages so you need to be really sure you're buying into a scheme where the advantages outweigh them. Personally I'm waiting for a slump in the market as that would be an ideal opportunity to buy the rest.