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Shared ownership VS Help to Buy

2 replies

HmmmmWhatToDo · 28/05/2013 23:06

Ok, please bear with me as I try to explain where we are at. I'm not sure if I've posted in the right section but am hoping for some much needed advice.

DH and I currently live in a shared ownership property (south central London). We currently have a 25% share. Our flat has 2 good-sized bedrooms. We love the area, very central, at least one decent primary school (not sure about secondaries).

We have one DC and are considering expanding our brood. We've been happy living here with our one DC but are wondering if we need to move somewhere with an extra bedroom. We don't have a garden and I kinda have this silly thing about having a house rather than a flat, especially if our family is getting bigger.

However, to afford this we would definitely have to move out of London. A decision obviously DH and I would have to make, weighing everything up.

What I am worried about is whether, with the government's new Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme (which we would want to take advantage of because we don't have much in the way of deposit) we will be effectively trapped in Shared Ownership due to a lack of buyers. Will people buy a resale Shared Ownership property when there are other schemes now available??

If so, can we somehow transfer our Shared Ownership to Help to Buy mortgage guarantee? (I suspect this wouldn't possible but wonder what others think).

Would we be better pouring everything we can (not much :) ) into our existing mortgage in the hope of increasing our equity to help us staircase up to full ownership, leaving any move til a few years later down the line once we can sell outright through an estate agent rather than the HA (or rent it out perhaps).

Confused argh...thanks for reading this far, sorry it was long.

OP posts:
superram · 30/05/2013 10:15

Don't buy your current property outright if it is in a ha block as you will not get market value and can be difficult to sell a private flat in a ha block. Why not sell flat back to ha take your 25% of the profit and use the other scheme?

Jcee · 30/05/2013 22:28

I second what superram says - sell back to your HA and then use help to buy.

Despite there being a number of govt housing initiatives available, shared ownership is still popular as help to buy is only currently available on new build

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