Episode 1 - Let’s talk all things shared ownership - Podcast

In the first ever episode of "This Shared Ownership Thing" Podcast, Cheryl Gibbens (Marketing Officer) and Gemma Robinson (Senior Marketing Officer) gather round the mic to discuss their top 3 FAQ’s about Shared Ownership, Toby & Sam's Aster Life Story, Buying guide - how to find a mortgage lender and Aster's upcoming Launches.

Podcast Transcript:

Cheryl (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to ‘This Shared Ownership Thing podcast with the Aster sales team. Each month we sit down to discuss frequently asked questions, share the incredible stories of our customers and we dispel the myths and rumors of shared ownership. My name's Cheryl, and this week I'm joined by my co-host, the fabulous Gemma Robinson. In this episode, we're going to discuss the top three FAQ's, our Aster life stories, information surrounding our buying guide and the upcoming launches of our new shared ownership homes. So before we get started, we'll just take a minute to introduce ourselves. So my name is Cheryl Gibbons and I am a marketing officer for Aster sales. Over to you Gem.
Gemma (00:57):
Thank you Cheryl. So my name is Gemma Robinson and I'm the senior marketing officer within Aster sales team. I'm currently covering a maternity leave cover whilst Alex is on leave.
Cheryl (01:12):
Fabulous - and is there anything cool or interesting about yourself that you can share?
Gemma (01:18):
Oh, that's a really good question. I don't particularly think of myself as that cool, but I would probably say the cool thing is about me. Oh, that's a really good question Cheryl. I would say the fact that I was born in the channel islands, so somewhere a little bit different, and we lived there for a little while before coming back over to England. So that's a little cool fact about me. Something a bit different.
Cheryl (01:48):
That's super cool Gem, and one thing I'm going to drop in there about myself of course, is that I've just completed the 24 hour national three-peak challenge. And if you're wondering, I will be dropping that into every single conversation from now on, so…..
Gemma (02:04):
Rightly so Cheryl it's a great achievement.
Cheryl (02:08):
Okay. So here's a few questions for our listeners to get to know you Gem. Are you ready?
Gemma (02:14):
I am indeed.
Cheryl (02:16):
Are you a dog or a cat person?
Gemma (02:20):
Ooh, that's a good one. Definitely dog. Although a few years ago probably would have said a cat until we got our dog Elsa because she rules the roost. So I'm going to go with dog.
Cheryl (02:29):
Okay and next question. If you're just working at home, are you someone who wears jeans or are you a lounge wear queen.
Gemma (02:40):
Hang on? So people actually wear jeans when they're at home?. I didn't even realise that was a thing.100% lounge wear. I'm all about the comfort, kind of the only staple part of my wardrobe - leggings or lounge wear. I don't know about anybody else, but I certainly opt for the leggings over jeans every day of the week now.
Cheryl (02:58):
My kind of girl!. And the last question is what is your preference? Starbucks, a little star b's or a Costa?
Gemma (03:11):
Oh, I think it depends on the drink. I think if there's a hot drink, I'm going to go Costa, but if it's a cold drink, like a frappe or something like that, I'm going to go Starbucks. Okay. Controversial maybe, but you know, a little bit on the fence. I like both depending on the type of beverage.
Cheryl (03:34):
And just for our listeners, especially if Amy Nettleton's listening. What is your favorite cold coffee drink?
Gemma (03:37):
Oh, well, it's not really necessarily a cold coffee drink, but I do like a chilled chai tea.
Cheryl (03:48):
And what is in a chai tea?
Gemma (03:50):
Well, it's a nice Chai, spicy cinnamon flavours and I think it's more tea based as opposed to coffee, but it just really kind of makes me think of summer and it's quite a nice refreshing drink itself. It's not to everybody's cup of tea, but I certainly like it.
Cheryl (04:09):
I'm sure you can get Amy trying that sometime soon.
Gemma (04:12):
I'm not sure.
Cheryl (04:19):
Okay. So moving on to shared ownership, presumably you found this podcast as you're interested in shared ownership, and you want to find out more about the product and how it works, but for those of you that don't know shared ownership is a model that enables you to purchase a share of a home, usually between 25 to 75% and you pay rent on the remaining share. And the deposits are usually a minimum of 5% of the share that you purchase. So for our first topic, we're going to share some of the questions that we frequently get asked through live chat or social media or on the phones from our amazing customers. So Gem, I'm going to ask you some of the questions that we are asked most frequently. Okay. Are you ready?
Gemma (05:07):
I am indeed. Go ahead.
Cheryl (05:10):
Okay. So for shared ownership, what sort of deposit would someone need?
Gemma (05:17):
Okay, so this is a great one. So you usually only need a 5% deposit based upon the percentage share of the property you're buying. So just as an example, if you were to buy a 40% share in a £300,000 property, so the share would be £120,000, your 5% deposit would actually be based upon the share. So the £120,000 you're buying as opposed to the full property price. So that would mean it's around the £6,000 mark. So it's far more achievable as opposed to having to raise a deposit on the full market value.
Cheryl (05:51):
Okay, perfect. That makes sense. Next question. Can you buy more shares once you've purchased your initial share? So say I went and purchased 30% of a home. Could I then go on to buy more shares in the future?
Gemma (06:07):
Absolutely, and that is the beauty of shared ownership. You don't have to stick at the share you initially buy, you can do if you wish to, but you can obviously buy more if you want to. It's called staircasing (So that's the jargon that we use to buy more shares.) and in most cases you can staircase and buy a 100% of the property. Now I say most cases because there are some homes in which have a cap on the staircasing amount that you can purchase, but that can be outlined to you before you purchase the home itself. So you'll be made aware at the outset what the maximum you can buy. But like we say, in most instances you can go on to buy a hundred percent of the property and then buy outright.
Cheryl (06:49):
Okay. So if someone was wanting to staircase their home, would they do that through Aster?
Gemma (06:55):
Absolutely. We've got a dedicated team, a resale and staircasing team, led by Anna and Karen and you have a dedicated resale negotiator who would actually be able to guide you through the whole process. It's all dealt with in house. So we can guide you through this every step of the way and full information is on our website about that. But if anyone's ever got any questions about how the process works, they can get in touch with us on live chat or on social media, and we can talk them through exactly what they would need to do.
Cheryl (07:23):
Fabulous. Thank you. And the last question, if someone has purchased a shared ownership home with Aster, but would then like to sell it a few years later, would they be able to do that?
Gemma (07:37):
Absolutely, and it kind of leads on from the question previously as well. We have a dedicated team that can help do this. So as soon as you decide you want to sell, your property will get valued and placed on the market with Aster. So we have an eight week period in which we would try and sell that property for you, bearing in mind, we have a database of people that are looking for properties in different areas. So we're quite well-placed to do that. If the property hasn't sold within that timeframe, you can obviously go to another estate agent of your choice and sell it through them.
Cheryl (08:10):
Fabulous. Thank you, Gem. So that is the three most common questions we've been asked recently, mainly on our live chat function on our website. So it's good to get those answered. For any more answers to our FAQ, you can also visit aster.co.uk/FAQ or you can ask your question direct by emailing us on homeownership@aster.co.uk, or you can contact us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or via live chat on our website.
Cheryl (08:44):
So next we are going to look at one of our Aster life stories. So the story that we'll be playing is Sam and Toby, and there'll be telling us all about their shared ownership journey with Aster. They were looking for a place that they could call home for themselves and something that they could also afford in the Oxfordshire area.
Toby (09:10):
Both Sam and I had a period where we were renting obviously, and Oxford is notoriously expensive for many reasons. So the kind of desire to get out of the rental property market and into, onto the property ladder, so to speak was kind of always the aim. That was the time to both kind of get away from renting and towards more stable.
Sam (09:39):
We pay...well no we do pay less in rent, pretty much I'd say, and we also own a place and that comes and you do feel different when you actually own somewhere you sorta feel very proud of it. And, and you want to be there that's what I've noticed, sort of beforehand. I didn't really care about where I stayed. It was just somewhere to wake up and go to bed in, but now I find myself actually wanting to go home.
Toby (10:13):
Aster is a housing developer and also a housing association. So they build their own houses for sale for direct sell for shared ownership and then also housing association as well, that markets properties.
Toby (10:31):
Aster helped a lot just by, by being a source of information for it, because it's quite a daunting thing when you're making that first step. And certainly my generation, I didn't ever think we'd be able to just cause it seemed just the way everything was going that we'd be renting forever. But Aster was quite like a solid source of information to say, I know there are other ways just of getting there other than just sort of the more traditional route and they, yeah, they, they sort of told us all about shared Ownership.
Sam (11:05):
Aster just get on with things they don't burden you with things you don't actually have to know about. They're just there when you need them. At the end of the phone or on email, they just do an awful lot of hard work, but you're sort of unaware of it and you're happy with that because you trust them.
Toby (11:25):
Aster take the stress out of it and when you're a first time, when you're first time buyer, that's a massive, massive thing that's almost hard to overstate and they make the process very surprisingly easy which again, for people, our age in our situation was a massive, massive help.
Sam (11:46):
You know, it's the best thing I've ever done. And that is in a massive way thanks to them.
Gemma (11:57):
I think this is a fantastic life story. I know I've seen this a few times and heard about Sam and Toby. What I particularly love about their story is they were well aware of Oxfordshire being super, super expensive. They didn't obviously feel that it was achievable to buy a property in the area they loved. But shared ownership really allowed them to continue to stay in a place they love to live and actually be able to call it home. So it's really given them the security that they were after. And that's why I love about the shared ownership product. You can stay in the place that you want to live. You're not necessarily pushed to another area due to costs and you know, the cost of the property itself. So I think it also highlights how the product can work for you. So you can stay in an area you want to live in.
Cheryl (12:40):
Yeah, I think as well, one really special thing. Sam and Toby both mentioned in the life story, how, before they had found a home, they, they were just in a place that they could drop all their stuff off that like they didn't refer to it as home, but shared ownership has enabled them to actually have a place that they can call home themselves. So yeah, really special and a good story for how shared ownership works for people.
Gemma (13:05):
Definitely.
Cheryl (13:06):
So you can also visit aster.co.Uk/Lifestories to watch more of our customer testimonials. If you would like to hear their stories,
Cheryl (13:26):
Now we're going to move on to buying guide. So if you're thinking about buying your first home, but you don't know where to begin, we have a handy buyer's guide on our website. You can find this on aster.co.Uk/Propertybuyingguide. And for this part of the buying guide episode, we're going to discuss how to find a mortgage lender. So Gem, if I was to look at buying a shared ownership home, how, where would I start in trying to find a mortgage lender? What would I do?
Gemma (13:59):
Okay, so there are various ways in which you can find a mortgage lender. So, you know, the typical online research asking friends and family for, you know, recommendations or word of mouth. The good thing here at Aster is we do work with a company called T M P, which stands for the mortgage people. Now they can help you, not only do the affordability assessments to work out the share of the property you can afford to buy, but they’re also really well-placed and they know the other shared ownership mortgage providers that are out there and can advise on lenders available for you and your circumstances. So they really take the hassle out of finding the right mortgage product, because with shared ownership, you will need a specific shared ownership mortgage product type, as opposed to a mortgage that you could get on the high street.So one thing, you know, we always would like to say, you know, if you've got any questions about the whole process, the affordability assessments, or how to reach TMP, get in touch with us, we're always available for you to contact us on live chat or social media. So you can just pop us a message and we can certainly direct you to TMP who will be able to provide you some advice in this regard.
Cheryl (15:12):
Perfect. Thank you, Gem that's super helpful to know. And lastly, on our first little episode, we are going to go through the exciting upcoming launches that we have for our new homes. So Gem, would you like to share what locations we have shared ownership homes coming up in?
Gemma (15:38):
Absolutely. So it's going to be a really busy couple of months for us all so it's a really fantastic opportunity to get your foot on that property ladder. So we'll have a couple of properties coming to Hop Field Place in Alton, which is in Hampshire. We've also got some properties at Carrington Place in Redhill, in Surrey. Carmel Meadows in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. River's Edge in Wimborne, Dorset. The Pavilions in now, excuse me in advance, is it Bodicote or Bodycote. Bodicote. Thank you, Cheryl knows this is because Cheryl looks after Oxfordshire. So thank you there. New Fields, in Chichester in Sussex. Rookery Park in North Bersted in Sussex. Shopwykes Lakes in Chichester in Sussex. Larkbear in Barnstable in Devon and Victoria Heights in Exeter in Devon. So you can really see there's a vast amount, you know, coming to Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Sussex and Devon too, so you know, across the whole of the south and Southwest and we're really proud of.
Cheryl (16:37):
Definitely, and if anyone was wondering, or if you are looking for new home, we cover areas starting from the bottom in Cornwall and Devon, and we go right up to the Sussex, Surrey, Oxfordshire area. So if you're looking for a home there, we might have something for you.
Cheryl (16:56):
But anyway, thank you so much, Gem, for jumping on the podcast today for episode one.
Gemma (17:02):
Absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting me along.
Cheryl (17:03):
It's been lovely having you and thank you to everyone for listening. This shared ownership thing podcast is brought to you by Aster sales and you can visit aster.co.Uk/Slash sales for more information.