Owning your own home

Andy you masochist, I thought my imagery was offensive enough. But good point.

@dubkev and @ms-chris I think?

What do you mean exactly?

The TL;DR is that you are renting a home but you are liable for all the repairs and expenses that you wouldn't be if you were renting a normal home. And like renting a home, you have a landlord and if you don't pay your rent, you can be evicted and lose your home. You might think that's no different to having a mortgage, but you have one of those too.

The landlord will invariably be a housing association and, although in theory they are better than a council, the reality is they are bad landlords. They take as much as they can from you, and deliver as little as possible. Any time you need to do business with them, they will charge you too much for too little. They place all sorts of bullshit conditions on you until you own 100% (and then they'll get you for increased ground rent to make up for their loss of income).

The homes are leasehold, and leasehold is bad. You think it's OK when you are young and need a place, but as you learn more you realise it's a shit show that's in desperate need of reform.

It's also common to embed SO homes in developments that include a large amount of social housing, and I know it's not hugely popular on here to say it, but fuck me, council tenants can be absolute fuckers in a way owner occupiers cannot be. And there will be at least one.

The upside is that the deposit you put down appreciates if the price of housing goes up. But it also can depreciate or stagnate if house prices stall or go down.

Even in good times, the market for 'used' shared ownership homes is limited, so if you can't buy the thing out before it comes to sell, you might be waiting a long long time.

In 2005 when I bought, there was no doubt prices were rocketing up. And since, they have never gone down, only stalled.

But now, bets might be off - you have pandemic and Brexit at play.

That said, if its your only option, try it, you might get lucky. I did OK, but I would have done infinitely better had I bought a house in Stratford for pennies at the time.

Yes its certainly not the ideal way of buying a house. But we pay 1200 pcm rent at the moment or could be paying around that all in with charges/rent/mortgage 1 mile down the road and at least be acquiring some level of equity rather than paying someone else's mortgage. Am i being naive or does that not make more monetary sense?

I think it’s nice. People forget it’s not just buying buildings, it’s buying hopes and dreams. We left a bottle of good wine and a welcome letter to our buyers the same way the people we bought it off did us.

Yep, the people I bought my house from left a bottle of wine and a 'Welcome to your new home' card on the mantlepiece. Nice touch.

How far down the road would you need to move to buy outright?
I think that is the question you need to ask, if you can avoid SO then do so.
If not bite the bullet and buy in.

We did the same, but that's after completion not after an offer is accepted.

At such an early stage there must be part of you thinking it's an apology in advance.

a gift creates an obligation

Or they are just really nice

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-77313167.html

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I'd like to see the planning documents for that interior design in a listed property.

There’s nothing in grade II that stipulates good taste, sadly.

That's our new house!

Jokes.

The 3 "similar properties" mentioned by rightmove on the same road all sold for around half a mil. Cost of renovating this one?

Oh my.

I would, 100%, keep the cistern chapel ceiling.

And the fox climbing up the bannister obviously...

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Climbing or humping?

Worked for a smaller house builder for 3 years. The directors often bought the show home as it was the one on the estate that had been done to the highest, best standard. But then was sold at a premium. Check who is actually selling. If it still has furniture make an offer (low) for that if you want it; they will probably have to throw it out. Always get a professional snagger in; esp if the water hasn’t been connected yet (Common in show homes)

cistern chapel

Is that where you pray for rain?

Yeah good point, maybe they are just over excited.

Kinda almost like this, they havent done anything by halves which you have to respect. Sort of.

Cheers - it's a weird one in that it was bought by a private individual who then leased it back to the developers to use as a show home, and is now trying to sell it on at 20% markup. The 2 year warranty has just expired which makes me concerned about bits like showers and baths that won't have been used.

Was the private individual the developer's brother or something? Sounds like some kind of tax dodge