There has never been a better time to buy property, using more alternative methods, if you are flexible and have some nerve. And I’m not talking about risk here, but the nerve to look and then take action outside the box.

In addition to the excellent model of securing your next home for todays lower prices on an option to buy in the future, while living in said future home and having your rent deducted from the eventual purchase price (aka rent to own or rent2own) you now have another very attractive alternative.

We have recently heard about a brilliant – and not very well publicised yet – scheme that the government have launched, to help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder – totally different from shared ownership schemes and which means that you can CHOOSE the property you want to live in, and then get help to buy it Anywhere!

Open Market HomeBuy is a low-cost government-backed home-ownership programme that aims to help people to secure 100% funding of the value of their first home. It is a flexible equity loan scheme designed to help households earning up to a maximum household income of £60,000 a year to buy their own homes on the open market.

There are two Open Market HomeBuy products, which are designed specifically to help local authority and housing association tenants, key workers and others who are not able to afford to buy a suitable home in an area where they live or work without assistance.

Both products are available throughout England and have been designed to suit a wide range of personal circumstances.

MyChoiceHomeBuy / Ownhome

Ownhome is provided by a partnership between Places for People and the Co-operative Bank and is part-funded by the Government. Places for People is an equity loan provider in its own right.

Key features of Open Market HomeBuy

• You can choose between two distinct products, MyChoiceHomeBuy and Ownhome;
• You can borrow between 15% and 50% of the value of the property at a low, or no, interest rate;
• If you qualify for a mortgage of £110,000, for example, you could potentially purchase a property worth up to the current national house price average of £220,000;
• If you took up MyChoiceHomeBuy, you could get your conventional mortgage from a range of lenders; and
• If you opted for the Ownhome product, you would have a five-year interest-free period on your equity loan.

For both products, when repaying the equity loans, you would have to share any increase in the property’s value with the equity loan provider.

READ MORE HERE >>>

There are private initiatives doing a similar thing, and there is a company in Manchester, established 16 years ago, who offer a similar service to first time buyers, except that the interest amount paid on the deposit loaned is EVEN LESS!

And they offer a similar service to investors.

Why would they do that, and how do they make their money, I can hear you ask?

I’m like you – I ALWAYS want to know how folks make their profit and once I do, I feel a whole lot more comfortable.

By buying large job lots of property, wholesale, from the banks and building societies where they are repossessing, and then selling onto investors at a profit – but still essentially at wholesale prices. That’s how.

Find out more about that here >>>

Exciting time ahead in property methinks.