Shared Ownership- to proceed or not...

[londewy123]

Hi all,

Does anyone have experience of buying a shared ownership property? My DH and I (and son) are looking at a 2 bedroom flat at £160,000, 40% share. We have £16k deposit. We plan to be in the area forever really, although would ideally like to move on (already thinking that far ahead!) in 6-7 years.
We have a two year old son, currently private renting.

The development we like is spread over 3 buildings, with 6 flats in each. I've just read the small print and 6 of the flats will be reserved for short term lets for homeless people.

I just don't know if its a good idea. Its such a nice development, in such a nice area (good schools, close for work etc).

We can't afford anything 100% mortgage so have to look into SO or saving for a few more years (but with rent and nursery costs, its hard to save more than a few hundred a month, so it will literally take us years now).

Does anyone have any experience of SO they'd like to share? I would be SO grateful.

We're not precious at all but I obviously want a safe environment for my son, it sounds awful writing it but the homeless aspect worries me somewhat.

Any opinions/ experiences shared would be appreciated as I'm really in a conundrum....

THANK YOU x

We live in an SO house. I wouldn't buy the one you're describing. Ours has been great and a lovely house SO or not. We bought 50% and are now selling to buy a different house at full market value. I highly recommend SO to others provided they have an idea of how they'll make full market value of a property or the SO one within 5 years. In our case it's taken 2. As others have said, you can get into difficulty if you own above 50% and below 100% and try to sell. It's also important to ensure you buy through a good Housing Association, a good one will be reasonable about rent, service charge and sale process.

Thanks everyone for your replies. This is really food for thought and I really appreciate all the comments.

I am leaning towards SO, as I'm fed up of renting and can't see us being in the position to save £10k for the full deposit we need anytime soon.
Having said that, I don't want to rush into something that will take us years of struggle to get out of...

I think we will have to look around- there are a few other SO developments in the area but they are marginally more expensive for less ownership percentage (25%).

The other SO developments are managed by a private lease holding company (which I originally didn't like the sound of as thought they might put the rent up more than this not for profit HA). The other developments don't aesthetically look as spacious or well designed as the one being discussed in this thread, and their location isn't as good.

The other SO projects are all just for other SO occupants, no council owner or homeless occupants.

Hmm loads to think about!

In that case I would definitely pay marginally more for a development with just SO occupants. And buy 25%, and then maybe just pay off your 25% mortgage if you can asap (thus forming a great deposit). This would put you in a much better place to resell.

Although it worked so brilliantly for me, it really was due to the fact that my salary went up so much and also the price of the area went up so much.

Also, like others, the only problems in my small development were caused by the HA tenants.