London Home Show Countdown: Clarion Housing

Guest Blog – Clarion Housing: Five reasons why Shared Ownership can help buyers realise their housing dreams

By Tim Seward, Director of Sales & Marketing at Clarion Housing.

At Clarion Housing, we’re really excited again to be a main sponsor for the London Home Show, which is a very important date in our calendar- it’s a fantastic opportunity to engage face-to-face with people looking for a home.

Shared Ownership remains a key part of the Clarion development pipeline. In fact we’re delivering more Shared Ownership than any other tenure and have big plans to keep increasing our pipeline of Shared Ownership – not just in London, but across the south, midlands and for the first time entering the northern Shared Ownership market.

Why are we so keen to do more Shared Ownership? Because we strongly believe Shared Ownership has a huge amount to offer:

It helps people who can’t afford to buy outright to still buy a home of their own

With property prices generally still on the up, it’s incredibly hard for anyone to buy and Shared Ownership bridges that gap by enabling people to buy in stages. It still means from day one that they have full ownership rights to enjoy their home, but it’s a simple way to support them to do it at a level they can afford.

You only need a 5% deposit of the share you are buying

A huge barrier to most people who want to buy a property is being able to save up the deposit. This is where Shared Ownership really has the key to remove that problem – depending on your financial circumstances, many lenders will allow you to buy with just a 5% deposit – the best bit is that’s not 5% of the full property value, but 5% of the share value. On many Shared Ownership sales that can be as low as 25%. So all you could need is 5% of 25%. That really is a game changer for many people and gives Shared Ownership the edge on buying outright or other products like Help to Buy.

Why pay rent to a landlord or be stuck at home with parents when you could have your own home?

Shared Ownership means even though you just own a share to start with, whatever share you do have is equity you’re building up. So rather than pay a large amount to a landlord to go into their pocket through rent, that money could be going towards your mortgage on your share – as you pay off that mortgage, it’s like a savings plan, you are building up equity in the Shared Ownership property which you could release anytime you want to sell.

Shared Ownership is usually cheaper than renting

The sector has done lots of research to compare buying with the cost of renting and as rents rise, Shared Ownership in many cases is the cheaper option. You’re investing in your own home and it could be saving you money! Also providing you are keeping up with your rent and mortgage payments you have security of tenure as it’s your home.

You can have a brand new home

The majority of Shared Ownership homes are brand new developments – meaning you’re buying a new home. Housing groups have stepped up their game over the years and the standard of Shared Ownership homes is high, with an excellent specification and quality finish. At Clarion we’re responsible for the long term management of our Shared Ownership developments, meaning we invest in quality that will last.

The London Home Show will be taking place at the QEII Centre in Westminster on Saturday 22nd September, 11am-5pm. Get your free tickets today at sharetobuy.com/homeshow.