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Shared Ownership Schemes - Particularly In Lambeth

I was going to mention kea's thing.

To me, it doesn't make sense. The idea that you get on the "property ladder" isn't quite right - you get on the shared ownership ladder which is a comparatively tiny market and provides reduced upside.

Maybe the marketability thing will improve over time, but it's fundamentally different selling a share in property than selling the whole thing.
 
nogoodboyo said:
I was going to mention kea's thing.

To me, it doesn't make sense. The idea that you get on the "property ladder" isn't quite right - you get on the shared ownership ladder which is a comparatively tiny market and provides reduced upside.
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Well, sort of. I had a one-bed shared ownership flat thru Notting Hill (that's almost where it was too) that I sold last May. I had it for 6 years, owned a 50% share, and when I sold it I made £50k profit. That money - or most of it - will go as part of a deposit on a flat which my partner and I will soon be buying. If I hadn't bought that flat - and shared ownership was obviously all I could afford on my own in 1999 - then I'd have been renting and there's no way I'd have that money to my name now. It's true that if I were still on my own then I wouldn't be able to sell that flat and get anything much on the open market even with the profit money and a mortgage on top, but I was pretty happy living in my old flat so I wouldn't have been much bothered about moving anyway. I don't say that shared ownership is perfect but it was the only way I was ever going to afford to buy somewhere of my own and I'm very pleased that I did. My main reason for doing it was that I was sick of renting and of flatsharing with people I usually couldn't stand - I just wanted to live on my own and to never again have another git of a landlord ramming the rent up or turfing me out on short notice.
 
Dr. Furface said:
Well, sort of. I had a one-bed shared ownership flat thru Notting Hill (that's almost where it was too) that I sold last May. I had it for 6 years, owned a 50% share, and when I sold it I made £50k profit. That money - or most of it - will go as part of a deposit on a flat which my partner and I will soon be buying. If I hadn't bought that flat - and shared ownership was obviously all I could afford on my own in 1999 - then I'd have been renting and there's no way I'd have that money to my name now. .
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but the money you made is because of the increase in property prices over the last 6 years. i think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks that oprices will continue to go up by any meaningful amount over the next few years.

property prices will rise in the long term as a function of inflation but i can't see any above inflation risess in property prices for a while
 
rubbershoes said:
but the money you made is because of the increase in property prices over the last 6 years. i think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks that oprices will continue to go up by any meaningful amount over the next few years.

property prices will rise in the long term as a function of inflation but i can't see any above inflation risess in property prices for a while
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I totally accept both of your points, and I know I was lucky that I bought at a good time (and in a fairly desirable area) and sold after a period of rapid property price escalation. However, although properties may well not increase in value so much in the next few years, they will stilll increase, and it's better to own 50% of something rather than 100% of nothing - ie.renting - if you can't afford to buy on the open market.
 
I've been trying to buy a shared ownership flat for the last year, but found that most of the one bedroom flats were out of my price range even at a 50% share and that the flats I could afford, I didn't want to live in.

Now I'm buying a flat under the HomeBuy scheme which at least means I can buy a flay on the open market. This means that Westminster Council will own 25% of my flat, but I don't have to pay rent on that.
 
wouldn't regard myself as an expert, but the housing association I work for, and others I have worked for have all had shared ownership schemes, so i f you need some particular info I can find out in-house, i think most large associations do have shared ownership schemes, you can probably apply direct, but there is also a second hand market...if you own a shared ownership flat and want to sell the share, you have to give the housing association first refusal to get a buyer from their waiting list, usually about 3 months, after that the seller can sell to someone privately, I've seen them advertised in local papers/websites,etc...then it becomes like buying a flat only buying the share, you get the mortgage etc, and the association will rent you the other share, it isn't as cheap as buying the whole thing, but the mortgage isn't as large, and you can claim HB on your rented share if you lose your job, etc

that's all of the top of my head, if you need any other info I can have a word with some people here
 
Reno said:
Now I'm buying a flat under the HomeBuy scheme which at least means I can buy a flay on the open market. This means that Westminster Council will own 25% of my flat, but I don't have to pay rent on that.
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sorry to bump the thread, but thats what relahni and i want to do

but i read somewhere you still need a high level of savings to be eligible. which to me seems daft! is this true?
 
www.towerhomes.co.uk do stuff in lambeth for public sector workers.

E.g. you buy a £200k house for £100k - you own half, the HA owns other half. You then rent the other half off them for a subsidised rent - approx £150 a month or similar....
 
£150 pcm? are you sure that sounds really cheap!

it is - there'd be the service charge on top of that too.

Don't forget these schemes also have a 'required earnings' limits which means you have to earn at least that amount to be eligable. You probably know that anyway. A scan around the Tower Homes website can give you an idea of costs etc (not including the mortgage costs on your share of the property) - go to 'search for a home' at the bottom of the page, select the amount of bedrooms and then the area. This shows you what is currently available and the pricing.
 
i think it generally works out at between £800 - £1000 a month in total, depending on the mortgage for the owned share and the rented bit, that's a big chunk of change
 
We're selling our shared ownership house to take advantage of money from the keyworker living scheme, but it's a bit of a hassle to get it all sorted. Meanwhile, if anyone fancies a 35% share in a £290,000 3 bedroom town house in Bow, just let me know :D
 
Rollem said:
sorry to bump the thread, but thats what relahni and i want to do

but i read somewhere you still need a high level of savings to be eligible. which to me seems daft! is this true?
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No you don't, but you do need to prove your income and have at least £2000 to £3000 to cover legal costs, surveys and all the usual stuff. A HomeBuy loan means that with some lenders you can get a self certified mortgage like I did. I'm self employed and didn't have to show any poof of earnings because of the Homebuy loan my deposit is so large.

They are changing the law on HomeBuy this year and some of the rules are changing. I think you will be able to get a larger loan, but you will have to pay some rent on it like with shared home ownership.
 
Brixton Hatter said:
www.towerhomes.co.uk do stuff in lambeth for public sector workers.

E.g. you buy a £200k house for £100k - you own half, the HA owns other half. You then rent the other half off them for a subsidised rent - approx £150 a month or similar....
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Or you could say that you buy half a house, they give you half a customer service in my experience.....we've had something in the region of 6 or 7 leaks from flats above ours (caused by original dodgy plumbing) since moving into our Tower home, including the sewage stack pipe which took 6 months for them to fix....the plumber who came to sort out the stack pipe said that the person who did the original work was "either an apprentice or someone with a grudge against who he was working for"....their contractors wrecked our garden when they came round to do cyclical maintenance....they regularly fail to return calls when you ring with a problem...once they have your cash, they couldn't give a shite (in my opinion).

Other tenants have reported similar problems, with sewage backing up due to too-small-bore pipes being used for drains, roofs leaking, poor maintenance despite high service charges. Rent portion has basically doubled since we've been there, almost up to the mortgage payments now. As well as service charges that they bundle all their incompetencies into i.e. their builders do shoddy work, they come round to fix the problems caused by shoddy work, they charge you through the service charge for the pleasure of recitfying their mistakes.
 
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