Other housing options

Nottingham HomeLink is not the only way to find a house in the Nottingham area. With more than 13,000 people on the housing register, but only around 2,500 homes available a year, you could be in for a long wait.

There are lots of other options if you're looking for a house - from renting privately to buying part of a house and renting the rest. Here are some ideas.

Renting outside Nottingham

To most people, 'Nottingham' means a much bigger area than the one covered by Nottingham City Council.

Most homes available through Nottingham HomeLink are within the city council boundary. This doesn't include the suburbs such as West Bridgford, Arnold, Beeston, Chilwell, Carlton, Gedling and nearby places like Hucknall and Ruddington.

You will see some homes in these places listed on this website. These are from the partner registered social landlords. Unlike Nottingham City Homes, they can have properties in many other areas.

If you are also interested in homes all over Greater Nottingham, then you may be restricting your options by just using HomeLink.

There are two ways to find out how to find a home in Greater Nottingham and surrounding villages and towns. You can look at the websites of our registered social landlords, or try these links:

• Ashfield Homes - properties in Hucknall, Kirkby and Sutton in Ashfield, Selston and north of Nottingham
• Mansfield District Council - for homes in north west Nottingham
• Newark and Sherwood Homes - for areas in north and east Nottingham such as Bulcote, Clipstone, Newark and Rainworth
• Homesearch - this site advertises all social housing properties in Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe. This covers:
  - Broxtowe - properties in Beeston, Chilwell and towns and villages to the west of Nottingham
  - Gedling - Arnold, Carlton, Gedling and villages to the north east of Nottingham
  - Rushcliffe - homes in West Bridgford, Ruddington, Bingham and villages to the south and east of Nottingham.

Swap your home!

HomeSwapper is a great service where you exchange (or swap) your home with another Nottingham City Homes tenant, a tenant of another council or a housing association tenant - anywhere in the country!

More than 150,000 people have signed up. Registration is simple and only takes a few minutes. The service is FREE to Nottingham City Homes tenants (there may be charges for tenants of other landlords).

Find out more at the HomeSwapper website.

If you have found someone in the Nottingham City Homes area you want to swap with, download our form and return it to your local housing office.

Private renting

Private landlords usually need to make a profit so their rents will typically be higher than properties offered through HomeLink. They will also have different standards of what constitutes a reasonable property condition and will want a deposit.

Look through newspaper advertisements and websites to find a property you want to rent. These two sites are very popular:

• Findaproperty (find properties to rent, tips and advice, etc)
• Rightmove (find properties to rent, price comparisions, etc)

Make sure you check that the lettings agent is a reputable one. Look at sites such as:

• The Association of�Residential Lettings Agents
• The Property Ombudsman (the new name for Ombudsman for Estate Agents Scheme) This site is for making compaints against an agent whether about a sale or letting of a property

Shared ownership and part rent, part buy schemes

Another way to find a home is to go down the part rent, part buy road. With these schemes you find a property that is available on these terms and then buy part of it - usually 50%. You then rent the other part and are given the option of buying more of the property over the next few years. You can then increase the amount you buy until you own the whole property.

The Homes and Communities Agency is planning to invest several billion pounds in affordable housing programmes between 2008 and 2011. The investment has already helped fund more than 39,000 sales through low cost home ownership initiatives. This has helped first time buyers nationwide get their feet firmly on the first rung of the property ladder.

You usually have to be on a lower income to qualify (a first time buyer with a household income of less than £60,000). Check these out:

• HomeBuy Direct scheme (a loan for up to 30% of the cost of buying a home) East Midlands Homebuy
• New build HomeBuy scheme (you pay a percentage of the cost of the property and then rent the rest)
• Shared ownership schemes
• Tenancy deposit scheme (Directgov website - protection for tenants' deposits)