Shared Ownership Houses

[Rataouille92]

My partner and i are currently saving to move out, the house prices here in Oxfordshire are ridiculously expensive and are weighing up all our options.

After discussions we have the found the Shared Ownership is the better option for us. I have seen a lovely house which would be a 40% share and we would be paying mortgage and rent. I won't be looking to move out until next year as we want more of a deposit and money to actually buy furniture to live in!

Has anyone here done or had a shared ownership house?

I would love to hear peoples stories and any pros/cons or recommendations.

The 5% mortgage is just not doable for us so the shared ownership is really our only option and we don't just want to throw our money way renting and have the uncertainty of having a permanent residence.

[sueandco]

I appreciate that this is probably not what you want to hear but the people that I know that have done it ended up regretting it. At first it was good BUT they found it was impossible to move on as the Housing Association had a say in who was allowed to buy and very few people wanted to buy second hand shared. Also the service charge became extremely high and repairs were a nightmare. However, some of this could have been due to the areas they were in (London and the Home Counties) and the fact they were flats not a house.

[daytonababe]

My friend had a shared ownership house as it was the only way they could afford a house.

I think she had a mortgage for 50% and paid rent on the other 50% but it did work out more expensive than had she had a mortgage for say 90%... They just couldn't save the deposit.

Biggest draw back was they were responsible for all the upkeep and paying for things like new bathroom, kitchen etc which obviously added to the value but when they came to sell they still had to split the value of the house 50/50. They also had to get permission before making any major changes to the house like the new bathroom

Oh and as above when it comes to selling , the HA have a say in the selling price and how much you can accept etc.

She's now moved to a rental property because they outgrew the house and they didn't make enough from their share of the house sale for a deposit on a bigger house.

[daytonababe]

Also not everyone qualifies I know when she bought her house it took ages to be approved by the HA .

My hairdresser tried to buy one last year when she was pregnant, but the HA said her and her partner didn't qualify and it was only a small 2 up 2 down house.

[Guest]

Apologies for another negative post too. My friend had terrible problems when it came to selling it. Just a logistical nightmare with the housing association that owned it.

[disneymadhouse]

I think when it comes to selling it depends on the housing association. My brother had a shared ownership house and he had no trouble selling. Maybe he got lucky and his buyer fitted the HA criteria perfectly. My brother made £20k in 18 months on his house which was an excellent stepping stone onto the open housing market

[Floridarules]

I know a person who had big problems, especially when it comes to selling.
The housing association were a nightmare to deal with😡😡😡

[Kawaii]

Hiya we did it for our first house. To be honest I have mixed feelings. If we hadn't gone shared ownership we couldn't have owned when we did. However when it came to selling the house we had to jump through a lot of extra hoops, which slowed the process down. We were told that any improvements we did would benefit us when we sold, however it actually created a nightmare which meant we didn't get anything back.

Like I said mixed feelings, I personally wouldn't recommend it but it did get us on the market.

[Jenfie80]

our first home was a shared ownership house, for us it was a great opportunity as saving for deposits would of taken us years,our first house we brought for £142,000 so we had to get a mortgage for £71,000 ! It wasn't cheap for us tho as the mortgage,rent and service charge were well over £1000pcm but after a few years we sold it for £260,000 making us a good profit, we moved on to a bigger house and was able to put a bigger deposit down, I do think for us it was down to buying and selling at the peak times xx

[Katm1]

Hi we lived in one for ten years, never had any issues whilst living there. Rent was really cheap as was mortgage. We did all the upkeep but that wasn't an issue as we viewed it as being our house. One of the perks at the time was that my building insurance was covered in the rent. However when it came to sell we had a few issues, 1. Some banks wouldn't mortgage shared ownership. 2. We only had a 99 year lease which when we sold only had 60 years left on ( or around that can't remember 100%) as we weren't the first to live there, so then it transpired that no bank would lend on it and we had to wait for a cash buyer! So beware of that issue and double check the lease etc