Whathouse.com unveils special guide for house-hunters as Shared Ownership Week starts

Today sees the launch of Shared Ownership Week, and to mark the occasion, Whathouse.com is launching its brand new Shared Ownership guide to help homebuyers learn about the scheme and take them through the buying experience with it.

Shared Ownership – or Help to Buy: Shared Ownership to give it its full name – has been going for well over 30 years and provides an opportunity for people unable to purchase a property outright to get on the property ladder through a part-buy/part-rent arrangement. It was re-launched earlier this year, opening up the chance to use the scheme to many more people with a maximum household income of £90,000 in Greater London and £80,000 elsewhere.

​Your guide to Shared Ownership, produced in association with Share to Buy, explains how the whole system works, taking readers through the various eligibility criteria, the buying process and how they can later increase their share as their finances allow. It also covers finding suitable mortgages for Shared Ownership properties and the process of selling the home later, along with profiles of some of the providers of the scheme.

You can download this free guide here.

Eleven housing providers in London and the South East of England are behind Shared Ownership Week, which runs from 15 to 21 September: Centra Living, Guinness, L&Q, Notting Hill Sales, East Thames, Newlon Home Ownership, Southern Home Ownership, Hyde New Homes, Moat, Metropolitan and Network Homes. There is also a North West strand of the event, with support from Plusdane, Plumlife and Guinness

London’s deputy mayor for housing and residential development, James Murray, says: “Shared Ownership can be an effective way to help people find a home they can afford to buy and I welcome measures to make the process more accessible and easier to understand. Sadiq and I are working hard to increase the amount of genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy in London, as part of our ongoing efforts to fix the capital’s housing crisis.”

Additional support for the scheme is coming from Legacy, a unique property group set up by Rio Ferdinand, Mark Noble, captain of West Ham United, and ex-England International footballer Bobby Zamora. The company is preparing for a high-profile launch soon, where it will explain its aim to deliver schemes for Local Authorities that will reduce the pressure on affordable housing and local community services and “empower their tenants through onsite community and sporting facilities”.

Zamora adds: “It’s really encouraging to see housing associations coming together to champion one of the most important housing models of our time and I am delighted to be involved. Shared Ownership Week is a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of a more attainable way of getting on to the housing ladder. This is something that is very close to our hearts at Legacy, where we have spent a lot of time working on how to deliver high-quality, more affordable homes and creating sustainable communities where people can live for generations.

Keep reading our daily news over the next week to find out much more about the Shared Ownership scheme and new homes for sale through it.