Lifetime lease from Homewise?

I have no experience, but I can see several problems.

The advantage is that you can "buy" the house you want for less than its market value. However:

Mortgage lenders will not lend on a lease less than about 75 years, so you need to be a cash buyer.

Once you have bought your lease that money is gone for good. When you die the lease ends and Homewise own the property. They make a huge profit - everything you paid for the lease (according to the site this averages 58% of its original value) plus the full value of the house when they sell it.

I suspect the discount is based on your age and health. If you are only just 60 and in good health you will probably have to pay a lot more than 58% of the value - so why not just buy it in the normal way. If you are much older the discount will probably be higher so you pay less.

Without doing lots of complicated calculations I can't be sure, but my guess is that most people would be better off renting, Using the example on the Homewise site (a £200,000 costing £116,000 for a lifetime lease) if the rent for this property was £1,000 a month the lump sum could fund the rent for 10 years. My guess is that this "average" example is based on a couple in their 70s so this may be long enough. As it is, if the lump sum is invested it will earn interest sufficient to pay rent for several more years.