Shared Ownership Schemes grow to open the door for first time buyers

Shared ownership mortgages and schemes were once only available to key workers like nurses and police officers but now the ‘part rent, part buy’ schemes have been opened up to help ordinary professionals climb onto the property ladder.

Any first time buyers that thought 2008 would be the year for them to enter the property market are holding their breath at the moment, wondering whether their dreams of home ownership will ever come to fruition.

The credit crunch has meant that for many the dream has been put on the back burner, but some are still managing to get onto the property ladder using the shared ownership schemes.

According to one London Housing Association the London Shared Ownership market is still buoyant regardless of the reports that mortgage approvals are plummeting and are in fact at an all time low.

Gone are the days of strict shared ownership mortgages where you had to fit into particular criteria and here are the days of the government helping first time buyers and families to get onto the property ladder.

The latest shared ownership scheme to be announced by the Government in the past few weeks is ‘Rent to HomeBuy’.  This is another attempt by the Government to improve market conditions for first time buyers and even developers have got involved by introducing their own versions of ‘shared equity’ schemes.

London Shared Ownership is helping young professionals to get onto the property ladder and is one of the only options still available to first time buyers.  With rent going up, house prices coming down but mortgages still unobtainable for most unless they are able to produce a large deposit, shared ownership mortgages are looking like the best chance for many.

One borough of London has seen 29 exchanges on properties last month alone through the London Shared Ownership Schemes available and people who had before, never considered shared ownership picking up the phone.

The London Shared Ownership seems to be very popular with those in the banking sector and law firms in the city, and not the usual public sector employees that were the shared ownership mortgage audience.

The London shared ownership schemes are helping so many people to finally get onto the property ladder and avoid the commute.  With the added benefit of ‘staircasing’, people are able to lay out what they can now and buy more over time.

Because of the part buy, part rent schemes out there, the risk to buyers is pretty much taken away as they buy a percentage of the property that they can afford and if the housing market does mean that their property falls in value they could be in the situation to actually buy more sooner than they had thought.

If you are interested in a shared ownership mortgage then get in touch with Click n Go Mortgages.