Is shared ownership still appealing, and how can we achieve a quick sale?

[Ellipellimulli]

Are people still interested in shared ownership? Or is a dead path?

We're wanting to relocate and would live a quick sale, any advice?

We are selling our shared ownership property. A 3 bed end of terrace in Aylesbury. Very close to amenities, train station into marylebone, great schools, cafe, drs, a little Sainsbury's etc. Surrounded by fields.
£200k which is 50% share.
Rent and service charge £571.71.

We've lived here for 10 years and really love the community, we will be sad to leave.

Well done OP. I wonder if he will still be do keen for his parents to move in if you won't be there? Even with bought in care, there will still be a lot to do for them I imagine.

Have you posted on the wrong thread? Or is there another thread by the OP that would make your comment make sense?

OP - I know I see a lot of negativity around shared ownership, and I think they take longer to sell, but for some this will be the only way they can afford to buy. Hopefully you can sell!

Are you buying a house. With ours we can just sell it on the open market and then just pay the housing association the amount we owe them can you not do that if you have trouble selling with shared ownership.
Do you know why you pay a service charge. I have 50% in a 3 bed but all maintenance is expected to be done by us so we don't pay it. Obviously with a flat you have communal areas. What do you actually get for the service charge.

When we sold ours a few years ago (40% share), it was so popular we had a queue of viewers and the housing association could barely keep up! We sold it straight away and used our equity to move into a house on the open market.

Best thing we ever did!

The paperwork took a little longer than usual, but all good

Had you done lots to improve it ?

@Apprentice26 no, nothing really! Fresh paint in the hallway by the stairs and that was it. I'm quite lazy 🤣

I’ve considered buying one because then I would be mortgage free and I’ll just pay the rent in my dotage but I worried about the kids being able to sell it when the time came

I brought my shared ownership home last year, three bedrooms. We are a young couple with two soon to be three children. Many people we know are jealous of us and would love a house like this.

There’s been some stuff put out in the news about shared ownership being hard to sell but I imagine there’s plenty of demand from young families looking for an inexpensive place to live.

It was fab for us. But we had a decent housing association. I would read up on the schemes local to you and then go for one with a good housing association. I know some associations are a bit iffy depending on where you are in the country.

No hassle to sell as we bought in a good area near a hospital and good transport links (which meant hospital staff were keen to buy and so were commuters!)

I believe some shared ownership schemes don't allow an owner to buy 100% of the property and perhaps they'd struggle to sell on. But ours could be "staircased" to 100% ownership which made it more "sellable"

I’ve actually been told the Small of the amount that you purchased the easier it is to sell it on so I was hoping to find something that would be about 40%. That would work nicely for me.
Thank you for sharing your experience

If you’re desperate then you do what you need to do but personally no - there are too many pitfalls. The developers lure you in with the relatively low deposits, nice finishes, and convenient locations but SO is the worst of both mortgage paying and renting. The biggest winners? The developers.

What would you consider the pitfalls to be exactly?
The new shared ownership contracts have a 10 year maintenance plan where the developers have to pay for any maintenance to the property
Compared with sprucing up a house pre-1930 that alone is probably worth while
I’ve moved into a little terrorist house that I thought I was just going to paint and change the carpet
I think I’m about 30 grand down already

The only downside for us is that the house is worth over 4 times as much as when we got it in 2000s so we will never be able to staircase to own all of it and will probably have to pay the rent for the rest of our lives once the mortgage is paid off. The money in our share might have gone up too but we would never be able to get a mortgage to move as we don't earn enough.

I know the market is very different now but when I was looking at SO in January of last year, resales were flying off the shelves pretty much as soon as they were advertised. The only one I managed to actually view and put an offer on was a flat sold on the open market because HA did not have the right to advertise it first so there were multiple viewings organised by the EA. Where HA does insist on advertising it for a period of time, they will operate on the first come first served basis so I never got to the top of the list.
With the recent increase in mortgage rates, I think more people will be looking for SO again.