Which one???

mountaingirl_2

If I had known from the start about the pain one undergoes in buying a house I may well have abandoned the idea.. But now I am too far gone in the process to backtrack.

Right now I have two flats in mind. As I have just lived in London for two years, I really dont understand areas and property types all that well so please help.

Both the properties are in SE london.

Property 1:

This is a 2 bedroom flat in a large victorian building in New Cross , almost opposite Goldsmiths College, right on the main road. The flat is on the ground floor and has its own entrance. Downstairs you have a large living room and a brand new kitchen with all the works - which also leads you to an overgrown garden. Upstairs are two bedrooms - one very large the other alright. Both need carpeting and the toilet requires a complete overhall. The flat is leasehold - 122 years and the leaseholder is the local council. It has very low annual outgoings.
Close to both New Cross Gate and New Cross.
PRICE- 195-- (Willing to accept an offer of 185)

Property 2

This property is near Watson's Road in Deptford. It is brick built semi. Formerly owned by the council but now freehld. The house is four minutes walk from the mainroad. It has a nice lounge. The kitchen needs updating. There is a largish dining area. Large sliding glass doors from the lounge and the dining area lead into a small walled in garden. Bedroos are upstairs. The large bedroom has built in cupboards. The bathroom and toilet are separate. The house is at the end of the row and across the wall is the place where the weekend deptford market takes palce.
Close to both New Cross and Deptford DLR
price 205,000 - I have'nt made an offer as yet and don't know how much further it will go down.


So which of these two properties would you reccomend?
Which of they would appreciate in value over time?
If I ever had to rent-- which would command a better rental value?

Oh I am so confused?
MG

cattie

Although I don't particularly like either New Cross or Deptford, my choice would be Deptford I think. The area is being regenerated at long last, which will bode well for the future.

Apart from having the DLR & mainline stations on your doorstep, there is the added attraction of being so close to Greenwich & the river, so it's location is good.Also for renting out, 3 beds would be more attractive to many renters, especially to sharers or the student population.

With the New Cross property you do have the tube on your doorstep, which may be just that bit more appealing to possible renters. My main concern with the New Cross flat would be having the council as the freeholder. Although the outgoings may presently be quite reasonable, it's possible you'd be landed with a big fat bill when any work to the building needs to be done. Local councils are notorius for their high charges to leaseholders in such cases. As it's a 122 lease, that means the vendor would have owned the property for 3 yrs. If the outgoings have been low during those 3 yrs it is likely no maintenance on the building has been carried out in that time.

You mention the flat is on the ground floor so does anybody live above or is there a just a basement flat?

michaels

That road in New Cross is always extremely busyand polluted and noisy into the night (but convenient for the clubs). I think some of those properties have offstreet parking - does the one you are looking at as otherewise I can't see there being any parking near by.

mummytofour

I would 99% of the time go for a house over a flat as for a start its free hold you only have you to ansewer too.

Norma_Desmond

I agree with cattie; personally I wouldn't touch the flat with a bargepole as I've got some friends who own a flat where the local council are the Freeholders and they've had no end of problems re huge major repair bills. Go for the freehold house if you can!

michaels

122 year lease from Lewisham probably means it was rtb'd 3 years ago, at that time the current owner would have been given an estimate of any large repairs likely to be required in the first 5 years of ownership so worth finding out this info. Also look at the type of property, I think the ones you are talking about are terraced town houses rather than in a recently built block of flats/maisonettes. As far as I know this type of property is less likely to suffer the major structural expenses the blocks suffer. Have you looked on nethouseprices.com to see what the property was bought for 3 years ago? I know bits of New Cross are in a special status area meaning that less stamp duty is apyable, not sure of the details tough or whether that road applies (same may also apply to Depford of course).

dander

There are a lot of horror stories about living in council owned properties, but it's very much the exception not the rule. It infuriates me actually. I lived in ex-council for many many years - Lewisham council - the same as you would probably have in New Cross, and I found them excellent leaseholders. Service charges were reasonable, and extra 'major works' were rare. I lived in my flat for more than 10 years and in that time it was majorly repainted once, had some asbestos removed from a stairwell once and had a fence replaced once. That was pretty much it - and each one of those was around £500 contribution from me - the council warned me around 1 year - 18 months before the work took place, billed me 6 months - 1 year after the work took place, and allowed payment in installments. The flats were very well maintained - we had a caretaker living on site, and any grafitti (which was rare) was cleaned up within hours of it arriving.

Other maintenance problems were dealt with quickly and easily - an upstairs flat had bathroom leak which came into my place - she phoned the council and it was fixed in hours, with no argument. We requested a 'no ball games' sign for our laundry area - it was installed within days.

There are a small minority of cases when council properties have expensive works done - these are primarily when lifts need replacing - when blocks of 'non-traditional construction' need re-cladding, or major remedial works - or when the building is listed and therefore everything costs more. For the vast majority of council properties of traditional construction it just won't happen.

Councils (unlike private landlords) are legally obliged to account for all the charges they make to you. They can't charge you more than a job costs, and they can't charge you extra in advance to build up a kitty towards major works. It's actually a very fair system.

Don't forget that with any property you'll be responsible for some maintenance costs - with flats there are more formalised arrangements, but with a house, the roof, the drains, the gutters, the chimney (if applicable) etc are all your responsibility.

As far as which of the two - impossible for me to say I think! But I would go back and have another look at both and think about noise. As someone above has said - New Cross Road is a very busy road - will you be able to open windows in hot weather etc if you live there? The same with the Deptford house - visit on market day could you handle people that close to your property yelling about bargain vegetables? Also - is the Deptford one somewhere that people loiter? If so - would that bother you?

For rent - I would have thought the closer a university the more likely you are to get students in easily. By that reckoning the flat may be a very attractive one for Goldsmith's students. Although students may want bigger places than 2 bedroom flats ...