Wayhome vs Shared Ownership

Because you part buy, part rent with Wayhome, people sometimes confuse us with Shared Ownership schemes. But, there are lots of important differences:

Wayhome	Shared Ownership
No mortgage needed.	You typically still need a mortgage to buy your share.
No new builds.	Usually only new builds.
We avoid homes with high service charges.	New builds typically have higher service charges.
You only pay your share of the solicitor and property survey costs upfront. You pay the rest back over time when you buy more of the home.	You often pay all solicitor and property survey costs upfront.
Wayhome doesn’t charge you fees to buy more.	When you buy more, you typically need to pay for: a solicitor admin fees a property valuation
Buy more whenever you want, from as little as £1 (up to 5% per year).	Because of the fees involved in buying more, you might not be able to buy more as often as you would like.
No admin fees.	You usually pay monthly admin fees.
A lot of maintenance costs are split according to your ownership percentage.	You’re responsible for paying all maintenance costs.
No rules about who you can sell to.	Often rules about who you can sell to.

Shared Ownership is often the next port of call for people who’ve discovered they can’t get the mortgage for the type of home they would like to buy.

What a lot of people find is that the strict eligibility criteria for Shared Ownership homes make them difficult to get in the first place and harder to sell because there are fewer eligible buyers.

Shared Ownership can work for some people. For others, there’s Wayhome.