Shared ownership offers you the chance to buy a share of your home, typically between 25 - 75% of the homes value and pay rent on the remaining share. In the future you can staircase which means you can buy bigger shares and in some instances fully own the property.

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You can buy a newly built home or an existing one through resale programmes through local housing associations. You will need to take out a mortgage to pay for your share of the homes purchase price or fund this through your savings.

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The First Homes scheme, launched in June 2021, gives first-time buyers the opportunity to buy their home at a 30% discount.

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What you should know about First Homes:

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• It’s only available to first time buyers in England buying a new property.

• Purchasers must also have a household income of less than £80,000 (or £90,000 in London).

• The scheme is designed to help people get on the housing ladder in their local area. This means that the eligibility criteria is set by the local authority and may differ. For example priority may be given to local key workers.

• There are only a handful of developments that offer First Homes. However, more sites are due to launch across the country with a further 1500 homes for sale by the end of 2021.

With the new Deposit Unlock scheme, First Time Buyers and Home Movers can buy a new build home with just a 5% deposit.

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You can only buy a home from a house builder participating in the Deposit Unlock scheme and using a mortgage offered by a participating lender.

 

Mortgage lenders are often stricter on the amount they are willing to lend on the purchase of new build homes. This is to protect themselves from the inevitable devaluation of the property in the early years and other risk factors. As such, they often set the minimum deposit for new build properties at 15% or even 25%.

 

With the Deposit Unlock scheme, the house builders pay to insure the mortgages instead. And they use some of the money from selling the homes for this purpose; the aim is to make lenders more comfortable about offering high LTV mortgages on new builds.

 

This scheme is exclusively for new build homes. And the maximum loan you can take out to buy a property through the Deposit Unlock scheme is currently £750,000. Although this depends on the lender and your circumstances. Please contact us to discuss this further and find out if you qualify for this mortgage.