When Louise Edwards, 31, and her partner Adam Spicer, 33, began saving up to buy a house, they couldn’t have imagined challenges that the property market would throw at them in the years to come. The couple spent years spent trying to keep up with house prices and surging mortgage rates, while living at home with Louise’s mum to save. Eventually the pair chose a more affordable route, and purchased two bedroom apartment at SO Resi Bracknell using shared ownership.
Louise said, “When we initially went to the bank back in 2020 to find out how much we could borrow, they calculated that with our budget, we’d need to build a 5% deposit of £20,000. It’s a lot of money but achievable with a bit of hard work. Then the mortgage rates started to go up, products were getting pulled, and in 2022 when we were finally ready to buy bank said we’d need a minimum 10% deposit – £40,000. To have the rug pulled from under us like that, it was devastating. We thought we had no hope of keeping up financially because the goalposts kept changing.”
When it became clear that mortgage rates weren’t coming down any time soon, the couple began to look at other options to afford their first home together. “My mum bought her house using shared ownership 31 years ago but we didn’t know very much about the scheme. We were a bit anxious initially, but the more research we did, the more we felt like it would be a good fit for us, especially as we could staircase to full ownership eventually.” Adam’s regular overtime earnings couldn’t be included in the mortgage calculations, but with shared ownership, the couple realised that his extra income would be the key to helping them to buy more shares in their home in the long term.
“We’ve already signed up for SO Resi Plus, which allows us to purchase an extra 1% share each year with no fees, and we’re going to start saving to buy additional shares over the next few years. This isn’t a starter home for us – we plan to stay for the next 10 to 20 years, so for us it makes sense financially to try to own as much of our home as possible.”
Using shared ownership, the couple purchased a 25% of a two bedroom apartment worth £80,000 (full market value: £320,000), putting down a 5% deposit of just £4,000 – 10 times smaller than their initial calculation at the bank.
Louise concludes, “Without shared ownership, we’d still be living at my mum’s house, still trying to meet our £40,000 (and growing) savings target. Now we’re officially on the property ladder and couldn’t be happier, with a real and achievable plan to achieve full ownership in the future.”