Shared ownership tips for the London market

With housing associations and property developers such as Aster offering shared ownership schemes, there really isn’t a better time to take the first step in beginning that lifelong dream of buying a forever home in London.

In the current financial climate, it’s pretty well known that in order to be able to buy a home, you have to be prepared to put down a rather hefty deposit. With living costs at a high, and wages not exactly pushing the boundaries, it’s easy to imagine how difficult pulling together a double figure deposit would be for young and not so young Londoners. That’s where shared ownership schemes come in, and why so far, they’ve been relatively successful.

Shared ownership schemes are offered by a range of housing associations and developers, the basic principle of which is that first time buyers are offered the opportunity to purchase between 25% to 75% of their home, with the housing association footing the rest of the bill.

In theory what this means is that the buyer would only need to put down a deposit on the percentage of the property that they were buying, and they would then look to pay their mortgage on the percentage they own and pay rent to the housing association for the remaining percentage. Buyers are given the opportunity to buy back their remaining shares in increments until they are finally the sole owner.

Things worth remembering:

• You must be either a first-time buyer, or not currently own a home to be eligible
• Your income needs to be less than 90,000 within London to be eligible for the scheme
• You will need to raise a mortgage on only the percentage that you are buying, which means you could be accepted for a mortgage with a lower income than that normally considered
• You can purchase back the percentage of your home owned by the housing association, but remember that these will be purchased at the current market value

With the London property market extortionately high, it’s definitely worth looking into shared ownership schemes within your area, in order to support making that exciting step onto the property ladder.