I have been looking into shared ownership for a while, i have so much conflicting information about whether or not this is the right move for me. I am currently in rented I need to move October this year, I am single parent working full time , my daughter is a apprentice she is earning a full time wage. I cant afford to but a flat on the market at 270k at the moment so I was looking at alternatives, shared ownership?
I have been put off by the ground fees increase yearly, and the rent that is reviewed every year (April),
Does anyone have a good insight into this, have you experienced it? I would be really interested to find out.
I’ve never been a fan of the model, but my impressions are based on limited reading so may be wrong or out of date and should be checked.
The first owners of the property may pay a premium because housing associations dont discount or negotiate on price. The property would likely then have immediate negative equity as any subsequent buyer will likely make offers below maket value.
At one time there were restrictions on who an owner could sell to as the properties are considered social housing. Similarly there was a ban on sub-letting. I’m not sure if that still applies.
Rents on the unowned portion may be high as social landlords tend to have higher than average costs.
If these restrictions apply, it would prevent me from considering the option.
Based on my experiences of shared ownership I’d avoid it at all costs if you possibly can. The full value will be over-inflated and you can’t negotiate. They know they can get away with it with someone who is only buying a share and has few other options.
Assuming it’s a leasehold flat, these are out of favour at the moment and sellers are having to make significant price cuts if they want to sell. Service charges have increased to the point where lenders are starting to avoid lending on them particularly if the SC go above 1% of the property value.
Also, housing associations are universally terrible in my experience, e.g. my HA, A2Dominion respond to emails with an auto-reply promising a response within 30 days! (and they usually don’t respond at all).