As a lot of people know, I'm renting my 1 bedroom appartment with my beautiful wife sarah. Its been over 2 years since we moved into Beckenham which is great but I dont think renting is a good choice for living in London. My friend Lisa just bought a appartment in East London for less money per month as were paying in rent. How is this possible? Well this is where shared ownership and keyworking schemes come in. The main reason why I mention this is because few people seem to know about them. Its the perfect step between owning your place and renting. So how does it all work?
The scheme allows you to purchase a share of a property from a social landlord, usually a housing association. The share you purchase is funded by a mortgage which you will need to arrange with a bank or building society. The remaining share you do not own is rented from the social landlord.
The size of the share to be purchased will depend on your income and savings. Normally applicants buy a 50% share but you may purchase a smaller or larger share (to start with, you can buy as little as 25% or as much as 75%). The higher the share you purchase the less rent you will have to pay. You will also have to pay a service charge when you buy a flat. Later on, if you wish and can afford to do so, you can buy a further share.
Makes a lot of sense when you consider the fact that London is 2nd or 3rd most expensive place to live and buy in the world still? So I've done my bit promoting them, I'm sure you will hear more about them as I take my steps deeper into the shared ownership world.
I wish like Estate agents and lots of other public sector websites that there was a RSS feeds for the latest property. I'm really considering ways to do this myself then exposing the work to the rest of the net for others in the same position to do. I dont believe some new sites dont have RSS still in 2005, for example Scopetech. Advertises its self as a copy of digg but its simply not without the complete RSS digg setup. But I digress…
