Shared Ownership Houses - your experiences please ?

[LittleWren17]

Hi, I am considering pursuing a Shared Ownership house . I could afford a 40% shared in a 3 bed house for me and my 2 daughters. It is unlikely that I could buy a 3 bed house on the open market.
I googled it, and there was a lot of negativity...saying that there is a risk of being trapped in the house - unable to sell or that I could make a loss.
I'm interested in your experiences please - good or bad.

Thanks x

We are just selling our three bed shared ownership!

We are just waiting for the approval for the new buyers to go through with the housing association. It was put on the market less than two weeks ago.

The good points for us were that when we bought 7 years ago we would have got a mortgage for a 2 bed flat locally (SE), but really wanted a house with one DC and another in the pipeline. It has meant that over the past few years our combined mortgage and rent have cost us less PCM than if we were just renting the property, and now we are selling we have made a small profit to put into the next house. Like renting, it has felt like ours, we could redecorate etc as we chose, we were secure- no risk of LL selling up.

The bad points were the layout downstairs doesn't really make the most of the space for our family- the kitchen is tiny to accommodate a disabled size downstairs loo, to comply with planning regs (apparently). We couldn't change that.

Selling up isn't as simple as usual. We had to pay out for an independent surveyor to value the house then that price was final, no haggling, it was the price it would be marketed for. We have had to use a third party agent decided by the HA who don't come out and do viewings etc, they hadn't actually got round to coming out and taking pictures, they used a couple off my iPhone. We are still having to pay them the going rate for an agent 1%+VAT. It is costing us slightly more in solicitors fees as s.o isn't as straight forward for them to do.

Overall i would do it again in the same circumstances.

Thank you for your list, it is good to hear the pros and cons. Good luck with your move x

We have a 2-bed shared ownership. It would have taken us literally years to have saved up for a deposit on a similar sized property on the open market (we're in the south east so housing is expensive here). Whereas I think for about 7k (for deposit and fees) secured us this house. The house is not perfect by any means (see my post up-thread on damp issues!) but I guess that is true for any house. The only thing I resent slightly is that our 'subsidised' rent actually isn't that subsidised and the housing association (home group) won't contribute anything to building maintenance even though they still own 50% of the property. We're hoping to be able to save enough to one day afford to buy the other half though so we no longer have to pay rent (which will make it easier to sell in the long-term too if we own outright). A big positive for us though is that we've been luckily and I reckon we have about 10-15k equity in the half we've bought since we purchased the house (nearly 5 years ago) which is far more than what we would have been able to save in that time (although obviously if housing prices drop then we could lose that again). Overall would do it all again though, as genuinely think we would still be saving for a deposit now otherwise!

We purchased our two bed S/O house last year. We purchased 60% and intend to buy the remainder in the next couple of years.

Without S/O we would still be living in our crappy HA flat trying to save more for a deposit.

Instead we have a lovely new build two bed in a great area. The house is large and spacious, has a huge garden, private driveway. We would have needed a couple more years to raise a deposit large enough to buy a house like this and chances are, house prices may have gone up even more pricing us out.

I have no complaints. We intend to stay here a long time.

Thanks everyone. I looked at the houses today and they are lovely and in a nice area which would be great for us. I've filled out the forms etc so now just waiting to see if we are successful xx

I am in London, have lots of friends who have SO.

Most bought pre recession in 2006. The ones who bought in central locations have ended up selling and taking the avg £80k profit they have made to buy flats/houses in outer London zones.

The ones who bought in outer London appear to be stuck. If they sell, they don't quite have enough to buy anything similar/better in the same area and if they stay, they do not have the income to generate a mortgage large enough to purchase remaining shares.

I think SO can be a good thing, but make sure you have an exit plan.