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.

Spending £30k on sprucing up a little terraced house with just paint and carpet….how much was the property @Apprentice26 ?

@Apprentice26 Sorry I’m late replying. I didn’t know that about the new shared ownership thing where you don’t pay any maintenance for ten years, but that still wouldn’t persuade me to ‘buy’ one of those properties.

Hardly anyone staircases to 100%, not surprising considering how expensive the properties are e.g in my city centre the market price of two bed shared ownership flats are £340k. Similar flats in the same area are selling on the open market for £140k. Then there’s the other ongoing costs, which increase every year. Even if you do manage to staircase to the full amount, you still have service charges and ground rent to pay for. You also have to pay fees every time you staircase, and generally you can’t sublet.

Having bought shared ownership mid 80s and had a nightmare with the HA and then latterly working for a HA, would I recommend, nope! Great money maker for HAs and then they see you as a cash cow!

I can actually see the advantages for me in retirement the equity that I have in an outright owned property, that needs constant maintenance due to the age of it would only buy me half of one of these shared ownerships and I probably would reduce it down to 25% so that I’ve got enough skin in the game to not have to move as you would with a Rental, but actually if you run out of private pension you would then be entitled to Housing benefit and you would have all of the advantages of renting without the disadvantages
I can see them having a surge in popularity again
Plus, the children would get the assets in liquid form rather than having to wait for the house to sell upon my death.
So only 25% is tied up the rest they can have straight away and I would imagine 25% would be quite attractive to a first time buyer

What is current value of your property?

50% of a shared ownership on a local newbuild

So the total value of your property is half of a shared ownership new build? What is the value of the new build? Sorry just trying to get the picture clear

I understand your question. I’m just not prepared to answer it. Don’t worry about the numbers. Percentages are absolutely fine for the calculations.

Ok so a new build shared ownership home is not going to be big bucks. Not even close.
and if the total value of your home is 50% of it - then rather than taking this just for not having the bother of maintenance…. Just buy a new build yourself.

Or is the only way you could afford a new build is if it’s via a shared ownership scheme?

Two reasons for not buying a whole new build for want of a better description
The 10 years Maintainence plan
So if anything goes wrong, which appears to be happening a lot locally if the Facebook groups or anything to go by. I’m not on the hook for it they are
Secondly, it’s effectively equity release.
I get my cash back out of Property
It’s liquid when the inevitable happens so the kids will be able to get it faster without the hassle of selling a property old or new

Not many do this
in fact I can’t think of anyone
and I’d be curious what a FA would suggest. Might be worth consulting one of you do decide to take the plunge.