The top 10 shared ownership mortgages

We look at the top mortgages that lower your monthly bills and your deposit through shared ownership.

Lloyds TSB research has found that close to half of first-time buyers now consider shared ownership when buying a home (including so-called 'shared equity').

So I'm going to look at the 10 best shared ownership mortgages for first-time buyers that I can find. I'm not confident I have found all of the best, since there are no good sources, lenders are not very open with this information and I don't have infinite time to chase them. However, I've done a lot of the hard work for you.

Some of these mortgages are limited to specific regions of the UK and sometimes are exclusive to people living in England.

You'll see in the table below that, as usual, the more you need to borrow (the loan to value or LTV), the higher the interest rate. Remember when looking at the LTV that you only have to get a deposit for the part of the property you buy.

The top shared ownership mortgages

*”Share-to-buy” is when you buy with up to four friends or family members.

**Fees include booking fees, product fees (aka arrangement fees) and other admin fees.

Those of you who can count might see that there are 12 mortgages here, not 10. I thought I'd give you an extra two to make up for the fact that HSBC, which appears twice, doesn't have a firm policy on shared ownership. A spokesperson told me the bank does sometimes agree such mortgages, but only "on an ad-hoc basis", where it will also participate in HomeBuy and FirstBuy schemes, with a maximum LTV on new-builds of 85%.

None of these mortgages, as far as I could ascertain, offered free valuations, legal fees or cashback.

Some of the mortgages have lower fee versions with higher interest rates, and vice versa. Lower fees might work out better if you have a smaller mortgage.

I have not included rates exclusive to current account customers, so you might want to ask your bank if it can do better. Generally speaking, exclusive deals are just a little better. Lloyds TSB, for example, charges 4.29% direct instead of 4.49% for its two-year fix. Or sometimes the fees are significantly reduced, such as with Nationwide or HSBC.

Other possibilities

If you want to continue researching yourselves, I have identified other lenders that offer some sort of shared ownership, even if they didn't make it into my table. They are:

• Santander
• Halifax
• Saffron Building Society
• Lloyds TSB
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Leeds Building Society
• Ipswich Building Society
• Newbury Building Society

Melton Mowbray and Stafford Railway Building Society may also be worth approaching.

Bear in mind that local brokers could have access to better deals. Sometimes you might be obliged to use a specialist broker by the housing association, or the mortgage lender might want you to use an approved broker.

Get free mortgage advice from the lovemoney mortgage service

This article aims to give information, not advice. Always do your own research and/or seek out advice from an FSA-regulated broker (such as one of our brokers here at lovemoney.com), before acting on anything contained in this article.

Finally, we tend to only give the initial rate of a deal in our articles, but any deal which lasts for a shorter period than your mortgage term may revert to the lender's standard variable rate or a tracker rate when the deal ends. Before you take out a deal, you should always try to find out from your lender what its standard variable rate is and how it will be determined in the future. Make sure you take all this information into account when comparing different deals.

Your home or property may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

More on buying your first home

What is a shared ownership scheme?

What is a shared equity scheme?

What is the NewBuy scheme?

How to beat Stamp Duty

When should you stop renting and buy?