To buy my housing association home now and not wait for right to buy

[Fulani1989]

I have lived in a housing association home for 6 years. Refurbished houses sell for roughly 130,000. Average semi detached houses in the area sell for over £200,000 as it's not a bad area but my house is on a medium sized (100 houses) council estate which brings down the value.

There's absolutely no way I want to live in this area any longer than I have to. It's okay for now as it's 12 miles from my job.

I have the right to acquire. I requested to know how much the housing association would be willing to sell me the house for. They said it was worth £90,000 and with discount of £9,000 that's £81,000. The reality is that my house is a worth around 110,000-130,000 but HA's tend to under value.

My house is a Council house it was just transferred to a HA 9 years ago. The right to buy is supposed to be extended to HA properties but I've been waiting over a year now and there doesn't seem to be ANY development. I'm starting to believe it's never going to happen.

With the RTB instead I would get a 36% discount and would only pay £57,600! Well, well worth waiting for. I'd be willing to wait a few years to get the discount as the discount gets bigger with each year I'm a tenant.

BUT I don't know if it will ever even happen and I don't want to live in this area indefinitely.

My parents and friends said wait for the Right to buy. But I'm sick of waiting.

Buying my housing association home is my only chance of buying a house. It's the only mortgage any lender is willing to give me because of a less than stellar credit rating from a few years of unemployment.

AIBU to just buy my house now? And just forget the chance of a much better discount?

I'm going to hide this thread now as it's not going anywhere useful.

I understand people don't agree with the RTB but I truly do. I always have done even before I had a HA home.

It doesn't make you a bad person for making use of the scheme and agreeing with it.

I am going to apply for the right to aquire asap.

The system is crazy but you are doing nothing wrong to take advantage of it imo.

Im in a HA flat and couldn't buy it if I wanted to . If you couldn't afford to buy a house in the private sector then you'd be potty to have to deal with the instability of a private rental especially as you have a child to consider. I despair of the whole RTB scheme that gradually makes social housing scarcer but that's not your fault.

It's not a shit area.

It's just undesireable as it's out of the way. Not many amenities but crime rate is very low. Outstanding school. Commuter town to a major city. Even ex Council houses sell for 130k.

You need a car to be happy here and it's really boring. More suited for retired people than young people.

Outstanding rated schools, lots of available reasonable cost housing, I'm sure plenty of struggling MNers would love to know what area this is!

You said the difference in rent is 125 and that 9000 is nothing. 125 a month is only 1500 a year off your savings. Something doesn't add up.

It's not 'out of the way' if it's a commuter town to a major city.

Plenty doesn't add up here Squidgey

By your description I very much doubt people wpuld turn down social housing there and that they would get a house immediately. I'm also curious where you are getting all of your information from, sounds like a load of bullshit to justify yourself.

I always says that people earning above average salaries should not be in social housing, or if they are, I they should be paying market rates of rent.

This is why.

The State is subsidising people who do not need it. And leaving those who do need it, who desperately need it, in dangerous buildings.

Christ there are some sanctimonious comments on here. It's like you are holding the op personally responsible for this.
I would in your shoes buy it now. You are not personally responsible for the housing market and if social housing has not been sold off for the past 3 decades. private rents and house prices would not be at the ridiculous heights they are.
Buy it, enjoy it and hopefully soon we will have government who will start investing in homes for people to rent again not buy.
There is something every wrong when going to view a house on a new estate in my home town to be asked straight away if it was an investment property and launch straight into what yields we could expect back.

whre is this magical place then op whre the crime is low and schools outstanding

utopia?

gabs I wish I had known about it a few months back when I was on the brink of becoming homeless...

@donttouchthemoustache i bet! hope youre ok now

Don't blame you OP to buy this house rather than rent on the open market but I'm an see why it riles people.

I think that's what has riled me about the op, she keeps saying what a good idea RTB is.
It's really not, it's fundamentally wrong and unfair.

However if you are lucky enough to get the opportunity, most people would do it.

Because humans are fundamentally selfish and it's the lack of acknowledgment of that.

I am doing something selfish, my dd2 has a disability and has been badly failed by the state school system where we live.

So she goes to a private school, which is unfair on others in her position who can't, I am putting her above my principles.

It all needs reforming and lifelong tenancies are being stopped now, I feel most sorry for those in private rented paying extortionate rents, moving every year and never being able to buy their own home.

It's not in a nice area anyway. There's no shortage of social housing around here

You're wasting your time OP. People on here are determined to have SH linked to benefits and can't believe that everywhere isn't like the south where SH is hard to come by.

Then on other threads you get horrific private rent is and yet on these threads this should be your goal if you earn a good wage. You couldn't make it up man

Posted in fury but will ask MN to delete my post as just realised it's pretty outing for someone else.

Fucking fuming at what I've seen on here though, fuming. The entitlement, the 'I'm alright Jack', the BS to assuage postion, it's fucking disgusting IMHO. Sooner RTB abolished the better so chancers like OP can no longer turn a personal profit on a state owned property.

Over a third are let out again by right to buy owners turned landlord. That's FOI request so I think that the true figure will be higher than that.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/buytolet/article-3197529/Two-five-Right-Buy-flats-sold-1980-hands-private-landlords-FOI-request-shows.html

I live in social housing in South East London, I am unable to work due to ill health, claim no benefits and we survive on my DH wage of £30k a year. Our essential bills come to £1000 a month, so that doesn't leave us a lot left over for food etc. Our LA have introduced a new rent policy that if you earn over £40k a year for every £1 you earn over £40k you pay an extra 50p in rent.
Why on earth should the OP give up a secure tenancy to rent privately, which is not only more expensive but unsecured. She could end up being homeless on a regular basis should a landlord want to sell, or reclaim their property.
My DD and her P rent privately, they are both teachers and cannot afford to save for a deposit and pay rent and live etc, they would give their eye teeth for an LA property and then assume their RTB.

My DS and his DW were in a private rented property with some top ups in terms of WTC, the landlord wanted his property back and so they were homeless with 2 small children in a hostel, they are now in a brand new build from a HA.
I think the issue is that when Thatcher introduced the RTB she prohibited the monies from that being used to build more stock, in fact very few councils build, most of the new housing in my area is owned by HA, whose rents are higher and they maintain strict controls of the way you live your life ( one HA has a rule that you can't hang washing outside on a Sunday!)
There aren't many of us, who given the opportunity wouldn't buy a home for a really cheap price. Rent is dead money, a mortgage is an investment.
If the purchase price of these properties were invested into building more stock, there would not be the housing crisis that there now is.
Don't hate the player, hate the game

I love how the left twist rtb into a non-profiteering Tory 'game' when it's for their own benefit. Where are the lofty principles these days?

Buy it now, it could be years before the RTB is extended to HA tenants. With the current spotlight on housing, I don't think it's something Tresemme will want push through, and if Labour get in at some point I would expect them to scrap the RTB.

OP,
I def. think you should apply for it now instead of waiting. If this is your only chance of house buying and not sure if RTB is going to happen then go for it. Good luck 💐

I believe RTB should be abolished asap. It massively impacts on social housing stock. It also causes a lot of ill feeling between people, the ones that can't afford to buy their council/ha house, the private renters and the buyers who have to pay much more for a similar spec house. Just look at some people on this thread.
I think we need to start looking at houses as homes rather than money making machines.

People on here are determined to have SH linked to benefits and can't believe that everywhere isn't like the south where SH is hard to come by.

I think the main point is that RTB depletes it. It's all very well laughing about how it's not hard to come by in some areas - it bloody well will be, everywhere, if this continues.