Low Cost Home Ownership

Affordable home ownership options can help you buy a home suitable for your needs. To qualify for any of the options you must:

Be unable to afford to purchase a home on the open market
Have a household income of less than £80,000

The options available will be personal to your own situation and will depend on the ability to obtain a mortgage, how much equity/lump sum you have to invest and whether you can keep up the repayment arrangements.  

You must first find out what your mortgage ability is and what savings/lump sum you have to invest.   This will determine whether you can pursue open market or affordable options.

You can see the full range of options available on the Help to Buy Midlands website (https://www.helptobuyagent2.org.uk/) which includes the Help to Buy: Equity Loan Scheme and Help to Buy: Shared ownership.  A Summary of the schemes are detailed below:-

Shared Ownership - If you can’t quite afford the mortgage on 100% of a home, Help to Buy: Shared Ownership offers you the chance to buy a share of your home (between 25% and 75% of the home’s value) and pay rent on the remaining share. Later on, you could buy bigger shares when you can afford to.

Low Cost Market - This is a local scheme where properties are available at a % (discount) of the open market value and available to those usually with a local connection to the particular parish in which they are developed. 

Help to Buy: Equity Loan  - With a Help to Buy: Equity Loan the Government lends you up to 20% of the cost of your newly built home, so you’ll only need a 5% cash deposit and a 75% mortgage to make up the rest.  You won’t be charged loan fees on the 20% loan for the first five years of owning your home

There may be eligibility criteria so please check on the Help to Buy West Midlands web site before proceeding.

To find out more about what's available in the local area:-

Shared Ownership

  • Visit the local estate agents
  • Visit the web pages/social media of the local housing associations
  • Visit new building sites and contact the relevant housing association who is working in partnership with the developer.
  • Visit social media sites where properties are being sold.
  • Visit Help to Buy West Midlands website

Low Cost Market

  • Visit the local estate agents
  • Visit new building sites and contact housingdevelopment@herefordshire.gov.uk or call 01432 261975 for further information detailing the site you are interested in.

Help to Buy: Equity Loans