hi guys and welcome back to my channel
where we talk about the Christian faith
health money and your lifestyle so today
I want to do something a bit different I
just want to share my story about I just
want to do it like a storytime kind of
version of how we went about saving
money buy a house we bought our house
when we were 25 and I just wanted to
share it but seemed like if you want to
learn about shared ownership and how it
all works and buying a property within
the UK and just keep watching I'm doing
it in a storytelling style because you
can find a facts on the internet that's
not issue but when someone's telling
their real life experience that's a bit
different because everyone goes through
different ways of achieving what they
want to achieve so first things first I
just need to tell you a bit about me
so I'm Vanessa I'm a Christian my
husband and I we got married when I was
with well quite young but engaged over
22 21 22 and got married with 23 24 and
so we got married quite young and we
didn't have anything really I didn't
have any that much money we just had
enough to rent a place okay so in 2013
we rented out our place we were renting
our place but what happened was no
children were quite active in our lives
we were very heavily involved in church
we literally go to work full-time both
of us working full-time afterwards we'll
go to church and literally where we was
living was just became a place we rested
our heads and we may have people come
around maybe once every two weeks or so
but it became very evident that really
actually come to this place to sleep
and I'm saying it to eat a lot I didn't
realize I say Liat rude a lot so bear
with me guys
squash there yeah everybody has a filler
in it but anyway we rented we paid our
rent literally a salary was going
onto that so we didn't seem to see
anything from that but after about a
year a year and a half that's when we
realized like if we continue this way of
renting a place we will never be able to
buy and so then we had the opportunity
to go and live with my husband's mum for
a bit
the plan was to stay there for a month
or two j't until we figure out what
we're doing but while we were there I
started doing my research fun I don't
want to go back to renting someone
else's property and that's the thing
about
wanted to save and buy a house you have
to be intentional with what you have in
mind and what you want to do if you
haven't got in mind what you want to do
do check out my video where I talk about
what you need to do to fix up if you
want to buy a house check out that video
but we I set my mind I started
researching how do I go about buying a
property and this is where the shared
ownership scheme came into it so how we
say to us we rented a room we did pay a
month amount of money every month and a
fraction of what we would have been
paying if we were renting a place out so
anything else all the money that we
would have been paying out I make we
made a decision we're going to save that
and we're going to keep our expenses as
low as possible so we can build enough
deposit we didn't have help from our
parents as such so we had to work hard
to make that money and really cut down
on our spending we literally spent money
on travel to work lunch we all be
budgeted our lunch and we paid for the
room that were renting and that was it
obviously paid our tithes and offerings
and things like that but elite that was
it
that was expensive if you want to go and
eat Chinese you better take it out from
your lunch money if you want to do
something luxury you better take it out
that lunch money and beyond that we're
saving so that's what we did for about
11 months but in that time I just want
to take you through what I practically
and physically did in order for us to
buy our house so I started researching
the internet what our options were
obviously got help to buy I don't know
if this still exists
you've got shared ownership and shared
ownership seemed more realistic to us
because in 11 months we can't see that
much but what we did save I start
looking into shared ownership so shared
ownership and I'll link below a bit more
information if you want to look into
it's just about affording affordable
housing and help him first-time buyers
get onto the property ladder so how it
works is you buy a percentage of a house
and then you rent the other part so what
we did was we bought up a place and we
bought 50% of the house so we've got 50%
of the property on mortgage and then the
other 50% we were renting so I'll give
you figures as it was so the property
was 250,000 pounds and we bought 125,000
of the property so we only needed to
raise the deposits for that 100
25,000 so that was 10% which meant we
only needed 12 and a half thousand in
order to buy the 50% of the property and
then obviously when it comes to buying
you don't just need the 12 and a half
thousand you also need money for your
stamp duty we have need money for your
solicitors fees you're moving fees and
all additional so you we need it about
maybe sixteen thousand pounds or
together so that's what we did
so first things first once we I started
there's a website called share to buy
calm and I'll link it below as well I
went on that website I registered and I
started just looking at properties that
are available and I came across the
property that we bought and then I
showed an interest so what I did was I
filled in the document the application
form I called the Housing Association
and what they do is they have criterias
so they will look at your maybe income
they'll look at them your affordability
and they'll look at your expenses your
budgeting what you spend your money on
they look at literally everything and
then they will decide if you're going to
be selected to buy the property so I
prayed oh I prayed I'm not God I need to
buy this house I need to buy this house
because it's close to church it's close
to work we can get buy-in that it's a
decent area and I like the house that
house looks nice so we came to view the
property and I said I must get this
house so obviously the person who sent
in the house 10 - sometimes I don't
really know if they have an influence on
who they want to buy the house but I
made it my duty to sweet-talk this woman
out as Isis there yeah amazing your
house is lovely yeah everything's
amazing that it is do one thing that was
an issue of this house was the lease was
quite low so people that were interested
in it were not as much the competition
wasn't that high because there's when
you've rent buy a flat you'll actually
leasing the property for however many
years a hundred years 120 years 19
and there was early about 83 years on
the lease and in the UK when you're
these chops to 80 years it's very hard
to sell your property because you have
to pay a very big substantial amount and
increase the lease on the property so
people tend to avoid properties that
have low lease we took the risk and got
the property and we're not God will make
a way for us to extend this lease before
it hits dodgy I don't know how we're
gonna do it what we're going to do now
seen here now we've done it by the grace
of God but at the time I didn't know how
we were gonna do it but anyway going
back to how we went about getting the
property so I registered our interest I
was calling the Housing Association
telling them how amazing I think the
property is there was a guy a specific
guy that was speaking to all the time
just being nice to him just how how do
you do how do we so that I can be at the
top of the list you know I think I
thought you know what I'm a so I kept on
badgering them in a way and when they
agreed yet you might have you maybe you
should be shortlisted that's when you
have to now go find a mortgage company
that will be willing to give you a
mortgage so we started scouting the
early difficult things a lot of banks
don't necessarily offer mortgages for
shared ownerships
so you're quite limited when you come to
share ownership mortgages we went with
nationwide nationwide bank and even to
get the mortgage you have to go for an
interview and in that interview they're
assessing your income they ask you all
your certain son that's going to change
if you're about to have a baby growing a
surface also about to change
so you have to be like honest and say
like yes or no if your circumstance are
going to change I said I don't know you
don't come predict the future so at this
present moment this is our circumstances
and even though check your affordability
and with that they'll confirm if you
can't get the mortgage or not so we were
approved for the mortgage the housing
association accepted us after a short
listing we were chosen and now this next
stage is where the lawyers need to
exchange contracts the seller has to
have a lawyer we had to have a lawyer so
we hired somebody who was doing the work
for us where we had to pay quite a
decent a large amount of money I can't
remember how much but was a good a good
couple of grands possibly yeah a good
couple of grands
I can't remember but we had to pay her
for her to do all the contracts and all
the exchange everything for us and even
then like the Sunnis lawyers won't get
back to my lawyer so it was dragging out
the process and everything's just messed
up and we're they're like oh we have a
week to get this done so it's a very
pressurized situation and when you're
limited on funds you're kind of like a
bit stuck because obviously when you
have more money and you have money to
dispose you can probably get things a
lot quicker but you also have to factor
in the person who's selling as well they
have to have a lawyer and everything
else so that process took a while so
from the starting process I'll say we it
took us a good four months to actually
get the keys to the house
from when we started the application
process and getting everything done and
getting everything processed and
everything so that's how we've got the
keys to the shed ownership and then once
we're here we'll pay rent on 50% of the
property which is usually a bit of a
discounted rate competitive market
average so say if the market average is
for a house is 700 pounds we were paying
400 pounds for example for the other 50
percent so because it's China M is a
government scheme for affordable housing
so they give you a discount in every
Housing Association is different some
Housing Association will only charge you
maybe two hundred pounds for 50% rent
because the point is for you to learn to
save some places they charge you quite a
high amount we were paying quite a high
amount and the negative bit is they've
kept on putting out obviously every year
inflation based on inflation the part of
the rent so the rent went from went up I
were 40 50 pounds within the space of
three four years and within the contract
they did say that by 2020 every 20 years
they plan to double the rent on the
properties that they're doing so I knew
this place was built in the year 2000 or
1999 so I knew by the year 2020 if we
don't buy the other half of the property
we are going to have to double our rent
which will mean we won't be able to
afford our mortgage and rent or together
which is a bit of a trap in a way so I
just want to share a bit about how we
went about buying the other half and
just a miracle I've got a video where I
go into more detail where how God
provided financially for us but one
thing I will say about shared ownership
is if your circumstances are going to
change for example you're going to have
children you may be out of work the
likelihood of you being able to buy the
other half becomes very narrowed down
because you're not making more money if
you're paying rent and mortgage if your
finances are not going to increase avoid
getting into a share ownership scheme
because you're better off just saving up
your money for a longer period of time
so that you can get onto the property
ladder get the property you want that
you know you can stay there for ten
years and be okay with it and know that
you're going to be paying twelve hundred
pounds or thirteen hundred pounds a
month and that's your circumstances
because we share ownership to buy the
other half you have to go through the
whole process see that I mentioned
that's going to it took us about four
months to buy the property you have to
go through the whole process again to
buy the other half or two by ten percent
which is known as their casing when you
can buy bits and bobs at as you go along
you have to get solicitor you have to
pay for a stunt Duty if needed you have
to so all of those fees all add up as
well you're not just buying the other
half so in your mind you may think I'll
just buy the other one hundred
twenty-five thousand pounds of their
property but reality is I had to get the
place value weighted so somebody I had
to valuations that needed to be done
which cost us nearly a thousand pounds
you have to get a general evaluator and
their Housing Association have to bring
their own evaluator and you have to pay
them to bring their own evaluator and
pay their admin fees so there's a bit of
a scheme that's to try and trap you in
even though it's affordable housing they
want to keep you on that list of you're
paying a mortgage and paying rent
another thing was we had to get our
lawyers you had to pay for solicitors so
all of these fees adds up and it kind of
puts you in a position where you can't
afford to pay for all of these things
and buy the other half plus when they're
probably to get evaluated
mortgages go up in value imagine your
mortgage goes up in value by twenty
thousand pounds
that's the other half you wanna buy
that's another 10 grand you're going to
have to cover even though you may be
making 10 grand on your 50% that you
already have you still have to find the
money to cover it but in an the same
breath once you put a lot of money into
the first 50% like we did you can get
equity out of that property and since I
can save them put in a way to invest in
the other half of the property so say in
like you spent 6 years paying mortgage
and you've built up a good like 40,000
pounds in that mortgage you'll be able
to take that money out and use that to
buy the overall property so it is a
saving pot at the same time but ideally
if you can afford to save the money
before you even get onto a property
ladder then that's the best solution if
you can avoid not getting a flat and
getting a house that's freehold that's a
better solution because when you're in a
leasehold you still have to pay service
charges and pay a dump him we even
though we earned the whole property we
still pay about one hundred fifteen
hundred and sixty pounds a month just
for service charges in communal and area
maintenance and things like that
so I just wanted to share this in a
story tenants and format just so you
have an understanding of what's required
of you they will look at how much you're
spending they look at literally your
bank statements so you need to get your
bank statements in check you need to get
your credit in check be wise who you
plan on buying a property with if you
can buy on your own fine but if you're
planning on buying with somebody be be
very very wise with the person you're
planning to buy the property with
because you don't want to be in a
position where your credits are merged
you're on each other's financial
statements and on each credit each
other's credit reports and that person
has bad credit because someone's bad
company corrupts good character so avoid
getting into a property like that with
somebody that you don't have that 100%
certainty that this person is here for
life kind of thing so I just want to say
thank you for watching let me know what
kind of videos you want from me let me
know what kind of things you want to
hear about I'm all about adopting you
know adopting life being a Christian
woman life and all the good stuff in
between so thank you
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day
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