Could anyone with more financial sense than me help?
Situation: family consisiting of Mum, x2 boys ages 12 & 9 and x1 girl age 8. Housing choice between a 3 bed shared ownership house 40% mortgage the rest rent with a housing association, or a mortgaged 2 bed flat in a private non council / HA area.
Both are a similar cost per month, albeit a larger deposit would be needed for the flat.
The house has a garden, but is in the middle of nowhere, no amenities or bus service. Quite a distance to schools. The flat has no garden, but busier location, buses to schools / college. Boys could share the master with an en-suite. Mum could share sleep space in daughters (double) room or sofa bed in the lounge. The children would spend time at dads too. x 1 already majority of time at dads.
What is off putting about shared ownership is there would never be the opportunity of full ownership, even if the set up sounds better. House, garden an extra bedroom.
The flat is big enough, and would eventually be owned. It's a ground floor so that would help with future advanced age. There would be no mortgage payments during retirement and the flat would be the children's inheritance.
The house would always have both rental payments which are currently 400 pcm and service charge which are 75pcm The flat would always have service charge payments.
Is it better to make a choice for the future or for now? Due to health and age, this may be the one and only chance of obtaining a mortgage.