It's likely you'll have buyers interested in your properties who are funding their purchase through Co-Ownership. These are serious buyers with the financial backing to complete and you can regard them as you would any other buyer - they're ready to buy.
How Shared Ownership Works
When someone buys through Co-Ownership, they purchase a share of their home (between 50% and 90%) using a mortgage or savings. We purchase the remaining share. They pay a modest monthly rent on our share, and Co-Own customers also pay a mortgage on their share. This makes home ownership affordable for people who have the funds to purchase a share, but not the full property.
Co-Ownership is Northern Ireland's shared ownership provider, part-funded and regulated by the Department for Communities, and we're the established way to deliver intermediate housing for sale.
Why buyers choose Co-Ownership
Buyers come to Co-Ownership for different reasons. Some don't have a large enough deposit saved but earn enough to afford the monthly mortgage payments on a share of a property. Others aged 55 and over want to relocate using savings or equity from their current home. For all of them, Co-Ownership offers a path to home ownership with flexibility built-in.
Working with Co-Ownership buyers
When a Co-Ownership buyer makes an offer on your property, they follow the same process as any other buyer. They will have their Co-Ownership Approval in place, which confirms the property value we're committing to buy with them. Once they've gone sale agreed, they secure the remaining finance for their share, either through a mortgage or savings.
We only approve applicants we're confident will be able to secure this additional finance - so you can be confident in their ability to proceed with their house purchase.
In terms of our property criteria, we ask that the property is mortgageable, in good condition, and meets standard lending criteria. We support purchases up to £215,000 anywhere in Northern Ireland.
Between April 2025 - January 2026, we approved 89% of the homes submitted by our customers.
To maintain momentum on your house sales, we encourage our customers to chat to us ahead of putting in an offer if they need to check it meets our criteria. This prevents delays.
Supporting your business
By understanding how Co-Ownership works and who it's for, you can confidently work with our customers. We provide:
- Training materials and guides to help you understand shared ownership and recognise when a buyer might be exploring this option.
- Marketing assets you can use in your offices and show houses to raise awareness of Co-Ownership as an affordable home buying route.
- A dedicated point of contact to answer questions about specific properties or buyers, helping keep transactions moving smoothly.
You can submit a request for marketing materials via our marketing assets form.
FAQs
Let's work together
To request training materials, or have a chat about how we can work together, get in touch with our Business Development team today.
