Help!! Shared Ownership

[hulahoopqueen]

DP and I are looking to buy. He is very much gung ho about it all, I'm a bit more hesitant.
We've been renting for just over 2 years, and we have a small deposit saved up - enough for a deposit on a shared ownership house (new build, 25%).
I've heard some horror stories, and my DM (who by her own admission knows very little about shared ownership at all) is very much doom and gloom about the situation - apparently we will immediately lose 10K in value and will never be able to sell our % of the property.

Any experience in shared ownership, pros and cons, would be much appreciated!! Thanks in advance :)

BBC recently had a documentary on this. They only showed where it went wrong though. Lots of advice on YouTube as well.

Is SO your only option? What kind of value house are you looking at? How long will it take you to save a 10% deposit normally?

SO has its place, but it has its drawbacks, I would only do it when ruling out the other options. HTB is another one to look at that I personally prefer to SO but has its own set of drawbacks.

@alltheadrenalin that's brilliant thank you, will defo look into the BBC doc

@user85963842 we're planning to get married next summer, and at some point within the next 5 years we will need to buy a car as ours is on its last legs. with those two things in mind, we reckon we should have the deposit in approx 5 years.

help to buy is off the table based on the repayment of the loan, partner is very uncomfortable with having more debt than absolutely necessary, hence the appeal of the lower mortgage for HTB

@hulahoopqueen I would question the logic of using SO over HTB on the basis of the loan, after 5 years of SO you'll have only paid back a minute amount of equity on just 25% of the house, throwing away 75% of your payment on rent, with HTB you'll have built equity on 75% of the house and if your income allows (only you can weigh up what you think your income will be in 5 years) you could remortgage and get rid of HTB. It's an interest free loan in the first 5 years, you'd only need to pay 25% of the price increase, pocketing 75% for yourself.

I'm not saying it's the right thing for you, it may not be especially if you are planning on children which will impact your income and affordability down the line, but I'm always weary of "my partner says" comments and would suggest you thoroughly investigate all the options.

If I was you, I think I'd save, avoid either scheme and maybe see if 95%LTV mortgages come back in the next couple of years.

I'm in SO, I think my main advice is to be willing to stay in the property medium term as they are harder/slower to sell. And some options full owners have will not be available to you if sale takes time eg you can't put it up for rental. But we did sell our SO flat eventually and now in another SO house.

Basically I will never be able to get mortgage approved for full value of property I live in (my income is too low) but the mortgage +rent I pay is much less than equivalent open market rent and I will own 40%of this house eventually...

I have always done this via housing association and there are criteria you must meet (income related). Would be cautious about doing SO with a private company as I hear horror stories about rent increases. FYI in approx 10 years my rent has only gone from 350 to 400ish per month.

We are living in a gorgeous little SO house
We moved in a year ago - me da and ddog. For us we did it to move to our forever home out of private renting. We were in the lucky position of being able to buy our 40% share right out. (Gifted some dosh, decentish savings) So for us it has been incredibly positive - our rent has reduced from £500 pcm to £200. I plan to staircase eventually. I wasn't in a position to get a mortgage at the time as I wasn't working. And I got the keys on my 50th birthday. Like I say we were private renting we loved the house but we could have lost it at any minute. I wanted somewhere cheaper and permanenter! I was on list for social housing. As luck would have it we were also offered a house on the same road!! But we'd already gone for SO. The way I saw it. The lump sum. That's sat there safely and probably gaining value. The house was IMO very reasonably priced. So we now live in a house with a very decent rent which we intend to staircase to 100% eventually. Round here very few second hand s/o houses come up for sale so assume everyone's staying put and happy. I would have snapped a decent one up and I guess there's a market waiting. How long do you think you'll be there? Will you be paying more or less than you do at the moment? Less - Why not??

#Ds not da!

On our little road 13/14 houses were snapped up with deposits before we even had the opportunity to view them!

My OH had a shared ownership (50%) flat before we bought our first (non-shared-ownership) home together. He sold it in 2012, and it was very quick to sell. From what I can remember, it was a bit more of a fiddly process - he had to offer it through the shared ownership scheme's website before he could list it via a local EA. When it went up with a local EA the prospective buyers had to be eligible for shared ownership. Honestly though, it was a lot easier to sell than our house and the criteria for buying a shared-ownership is quite broad I think (i.e. lots of potential buyers).