Award winning housing association Aster Group are striving to improve the house buying prospects of potential first time-buyers, through their shared ownership initiative. The scheme has been put in place to offer those trying to get onto the property ladder a lending hand and is proving particularly popular within the south of England.
To be able to understand the work that Aster Group are striving to achieve, it’s important to ask the question, what is shared ownership? Shared ownership is a specific scheme put in place to provide first time buyers the opportunity to buy a portion of a home, with the rest being retained by the housing association providing the opportunity. It’s designed to be flexible, with its most appealing benefit being that it means deposits are substantially lower than that of a traditional mortgage. In theory, this means that buyers could need as little as a five per cent of 25 per cent deposit, reducing the strain of saving for a hefty lump sum. Buyers are then given the opportunity to have a mortgage on the portion owned by themselves and pay rent to the housing association on the rest. At this point, it’s worth mentioning that there is also an opportunity to purchase the remaining percentage back, known as staircasing.
At Aster, the team believe shared ownership is a no brainer due to so many people within the UK that are on middle incomes simply not being able to afford to buy a home in today’s financial climate. Because off this, many potential buyers feel pushed into renting, which while suitable for some, can present many negative impacts to others. Shared ownership gives these people the opportunity to own their own home at a fraction of the cost, and to work towards staircasing as and when they are ready.
There’s clear evidence to suggest that shared ownership is a great option for first-time buyers, with the scheme being favoured more and more regularly when compared to renting or traditional mortgages.
The team are confident that first time buyers could well feel the scheme is the solution to all of their home purchasing problems and could lead to the start of a fantastic home-owning journey.