Shared Ownership is an affordable home ownership scheme which makes it easier for eligible purchasers to get on the property ladder. Buyers get a mortgage for the share they can afford, and pay rent on the remaining share.
No – this is a common misconception but the ‘shared’ aspect of the scheme simply means you’re sharing ownership of your home with a housing association.
If you decide to buy a Shared Ownership home in Merstham, you’re effectively purchasing a portion of your property. Your initial share will usually be between 25% to 75%, paying a mortgage on the part that you own and a below market value rent on the remaining share.
Yes – Shared Owners can choose to buy additional shares in their property by ‘staircasing’.
When buying a Shared Ownership home, you will initially purchase a minimum percentage somewhere between 25% to 75%. Down the line, if you find that your financial circumstances have changed, buyers will have the option to buy more shares.
If you choose to buy a higher percentage, your mortgage repayments will increase while the rent you pay will decrease. In the majority of cases there aren’t any restrictions and you can buy 100% of your home – in this instance, you would become the outright owner.
As a home-buying product aimed at helping those who can’t afford to purchase a property on the open market, there are certain requirements that buyers will need to meet to be considered eligible for Shared Ownership.
For example, there are caps on household income which means that you must earn less than £80,000 to be eligible for the scheme – or less than £90,000 if you would like to buy a home in London. The criteria also states that buyers must be at least 18 years of age and do not own another property either in the UK or abroad.
Shared Ownership properties enable you to put down a smaller deposit compared to those required on the open market – buyers will usually need to put down 5% to 10% of the share that they’re buying, rather than the full market value of the home.
On a monthly basis, buyers will be required to pay their mortgage, a subsidised rent and service charge on their home, however, these repayments often work out cheaper than or equal to renting privately in the same area. Other costs to consider when buying a home include solicitor and mortgage broker fees – you can find out more about these costs on Share to Buy.
Share to Buy lists thousands of Shared Ownership homes all across Merstham and beyond – including new build properties and those available through resale.
Shared Ownership is available on a variety of homes including cosy studios, stylish apartments and traditional family homes. Check out our property search tool to start looking for your new home today!
The major providers of Shared Ownership, Help to Buy and other affordable ways to buy a home in Merstham and nationwide have their homes listed on Share to Buy.
Share to Buy is the leading online portal for Shared Ownership properties. Established in 2004 as the UK’s first specialist online mortgage broker for affordable home ownership products, the site has since developed into a one stop shop for first time buyers, offering the country’s largest listing of Shared Ownership homes from many of the UK’s biggest housing providers.
Share to Buy is the nation’s biggest and best established affordable home ownership property portal, making it the ideal website for first time buyers looking to take that first step onto the property ladder.
Using our property search tool, you can search for homes that suit your needs via filters such as location, number of bedrooms, monthly outgoings and deposit amount. You can also set up alert preferences so you’ll be notified when new properties that meet your search are announced by email.
Acting as a one stop shop for first time buyers, Share to Buy also offers handy FAQs and guides, interactive mortgage tools, mortgage broker and conveyancing panels, and live events to help potential purchasers on their home-buying journey.
If you are a housing association or developer selling properties through Shared Ownership, Help to Buy and other affordable home ownership schemes, we can list your new build and resale homes on the Share to Buy property portal.
As well as working alongside Registered Providers, we also partner with private sellers who are looking to sell their current Shared Ownership home.
Find out more about advertising your Shared Ownership property on Share to Buy.
“The landlord at our old place kept threatening to sell up and leave us in the lurch, which produced a lot of anxiety. Now we’ve got a stake in something, we aren’t at the mercy of someone else - we wouldn’t have that freedom if we stuck in renting or bought somewhere outright. Shared Ownership has been a perfect solution.”
“I’d got it into my head that finding a Shared Ownership home would be quite a painstaking process, but Share to Buy made it so easy. I liked that you could do everything online – there was no posting off forms or long phone calls. The website was very visual, with plenty of photos, and it was so simple to use.”
“From the moment I bought my first share, I knew that I wanted to staircase. A year after I moved in, I staircased to 75% and this past February I purchased the final share, and now I own my home 100% outright. I really do recommend Shared Ownership as a fantastic way to get into the housing market, it worked so well for me.”
Many first-time buyers can feel disheartened that their home ownership ambitions are out of reach. With Shared Ownership homes in Merstham though, that vital first step onto the property ladder could be more accessible than you think. Help to Buy homes in Merstham also offer adorable options for potential buyers looking to discover their dream home.
Are you interested in staying up to date with Shared Ownership and Help to Buy properties in Merstham? All you need to do is sign up to Share to Buy and then register to receive alerts when relevant properties become available in your desired areas. It really is that quick and simple!
How much can you pack into one small village? It seems like Merstham is determined to answer that question because this scenic part of the Reigate and Banstead borough has so much more going on than you would initially imagine.
It is made up of four distinct neighbourhoods, each of which complement each other and manage to come together to make Merstham a better area as a whole. New Merstham is a large estate complete with its own series of shops, schools, and spectacular architecture. Old Merstham, as its name suggests, was the original village centre. It also includes a school and a choice of stores, alongside some great places to eat, a couple of pubs and even its own art gallery.
As we said, Merstham is all about surprising people with the depth of experiences it can offer. It is also home to a railway station, opening up this village to the rest of the country. Conveniently for commuters, Merstham railway station is on the Brighton Main Line. This means it connects to both London and Gatwick Airport to make accessing job opportunities and international travel a breeze for residents.
On top of this, there are also bus services to various town like Redhill, Purley and Crowden, to name just a few. The fact that you can benefit from such a broad reach while living in an area so spacious – boasting a large variety of detached and semi-detached homes – really shows how somewhere so quaint and charming can rival the bigger cities.
Finally, there’s South Merstham and Watercolour, which provide more homes, more prospects and a diverse array of local businesses. In fact, the latter was only constructed in 2010-11: an example of how Merstham is constantly evolving as times go by. And there’s more than enough space here to grow with them, alongside plenty of opportunities to achieve all your career and educational ambitions.
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