Does anyone live in a shared ownership property?

[ghostcake]

Hi MN,
I'm considering shared ownership as an option for myself & my kids. Currently needing to leave my rental property in 6 months as landlord selling. This has all made me feel v uncertain about renting again.
Can anyone advise on pros, cons, how long it took between registering interest, being successful & moving in. I've already been accepted onto two schemes but unclear how often the properties come up & whether they're pet friendly (we have a very chilled Alsatian)
Any thoughts/advice/guidance very welcome.
🏡 All new to me. 🙏🏽

I deal with mortgages on shared ownership properties. Pets usually ok, service charges can be quite high if you are looking at flats. Only a few lenders offer mortgages on them. How often they come up varies from area to area, but lots of new ones being built in the south east right now. Of the hundreds of people that apply not many are accepted, they either don’t earn enough or earn too much, so the fact you have been accepted already is a great start. They can be great as a springboard to buying another property, not so great once you reach retirement and still have rent to pay.

They have had a bad press recently www.leaseholdknowledge.com/shared-ownership-a-misnomer-that-can-be-worse-than-renting-and-worse-than-leasehold-says-solicitor/

I do, it was our only choice as couldn't afford full mortgage. Shared ownership properties are hard to come by round here so as soon as it came on the market it had lots of interest, I think we only got it as we had the biggest deposit.

Pros are we are paying a little off the mortgage, we can live here and feel secure and not like we are going to be kicked out, no tenancy inspections etc.

Cons the rent part is very high and they seem to put it up whenever they like and there's not much you can do about it. Another con is if you want to sell you basically have to do it through the shared ownership scheme so you don't get a say in much of that side. Hope this helps!

Thank you everyone! All your comments & thoughts are really helpful.