Our purchase criteria for a shared ownership home

• The property should be well located in towns or cities of New Zealand. YouOwn does nor invest in rural or lifestyle property.

• The property should not be adjacent to high voltage power lines, substations or mobile phone towers.

• The property should be structurally sound and in a good state of repair with no deferred maintenance identified.

• The property should be of a conventional design, with traditional construction, and using conventional building materials, principally concrete floors, timber framing, aluminum or timber joinery, brick or weatherboard, and a well-pitched roof being of colour steel, metal or concrete tile. There will be no predominance of monolithic plaster exterior cladding, and where it is in place, it will only be considered where there is a cavity, or over concrete walls, and the property has eaves.

• A building report will be required to establish the condition of the property. Any major defects identified in the building report will need to be remedied prior to settlement.

• As a guide the following minimum floor area is desirable:
2 bedroom floor area 60m2,
3 bedroom floor area 95m2, 4 bedroom floor area 110m2

• The property should be on an individual freehold title or cross lease title. This can be standalone, duplex or terraced. Strata title will be considered for terraced developments and apartments on a case-by-case basis and where the body corporate is managed by a recognised professional entity and costs are deemed to be reasonable.

• The relevant Local Authority Resource, Building Consent and Code Compliance Certificate should be in place. Where previous alterations have taken place that require a building consent, a code of compliance certificate should be in place.

• An independent valuation will be required to validate the purchase price. This will be in the form of a full Registered Valuers Report that meets the relevant New Zealand Institute of Valuers requirements. A copy of a valuation report addressed to the home lender may be acceptable at YouOwn’s discretion.