"You should always buy a house over a flat"?

Thermidor

PasturesNew wrote: »

One thing I like about a house (with garden/parking) is that nobody's going to park in your space (well, it can happen) - and when you're carrying things in or out (in the rain, been shopping) you can wedge your door open and just carry your stuff a few feet. With some flats, come home at 1am carrying 4 shopping bags and you've got to wonder if somebody's nicked your parking space, then park up and carry your stuff to the communal door and get in as quietly as you can and carry your stuff to your flat. With your own front door you are in charge of your approach, you can fit security lights to light your way, have a shelf or hook to hang your shopping on while you open the door, build a porch maybe, have a handy door wedge to hold the door open while you to and fro.

It's just nice driving into YOUR driveway and approaching YOUR front door.

PN,

You have a parking space with a house providing you have your own driveway and/or garage. Many terraced houses and semi-detached houses often have no parking facilities at all.

As for going shopping and coming in at 1am when it's raining..........wherever do you shop?

Flats in a conversion where peeople share a communal door are very out of date now. Most flats are in new build blocks with porterage/lifts etc, or are in converted mansions.

I think you're talking about those large old Victorian houses that were converted cheaply into bedsits and studios. Not a good idea.

Doozergirl

Thermidor wrote: »

Flats in a conversion where peeople share a communal door are very out of date now. Most flats are in new build blocks with porterage/lifts etc, or are in converted mansions.

LOL! Have you ever been to London? Or the real world even?

Even flats with lifts and porters have communal doors - if a flat is completely self contained, the term for it would be a maisonette.

Re: lifts - do you have any idea how much the maintenance charge on a lift is each year? And who pays for that? I don't need a lift to get to the front door of my house. I have feet. They come without a maintenance bill equivalent to the purchase price of a small car.

Thermidor

Doozergirl wrote: »

LOL! Have you ever been to London? Or the real world even?

Even flats with lifts and porters have communal doors - if a flat is completely self contained, the term for it would be a maisonette.

Re: lifts - do you have any idea how much the maintenance charge on a lift is each year? And who pays for that? I don't need a lift to get to the front door of my house. I have feet. They come without a maintenance bill equivalent to the purchase price of a small car.

Have I ever been to London? I was born and brought up in London, and still have a flat here now.

You're wrong about all flats sharing a communal door; some converted houses have their own front doors, usually the ground floor flats.

Frozenace

Houses and easy access flats can be easy targets for burglars.

I was living in a flat share last year and 4 rooms got raided, apart from my own... a spanish couple lost 2 passports and about 3k worth of stuff.

Doozergirl

Thermidor wrote: »

Have I ever been to London? I was born and brought up in London, and still have a flat here now.

It was a rhetorical question. Virtually every street in London has a large proportion of houses converted into flats. Virtually everyone I knew growing up in London lived in a flat and all of my friends still there, still do. Some in purpose built blocks, some in converted houses with a shared front door, some in flats with their own front door (a maisonette). None of my friends in London ever lived in a new build and none of them in a mansion. The majority of flats are still not new build and not in mansions and most share a front door - even in mansions and new builds. When I do a big shop, I have to go to my car a few times to get it all out. Even with a porter and a lift which cost a fortune, it's easier to chuck stuff through the front door of a house

Thermidor wrote: »

You're wrong about all flats sharing a communal door; some converted houses have their own front doors, usually the ground floor flats.

I did not say that all flats share a communal door at all. Most do - you said most don't. In fact you've just told me now that 'some' have their own front doors which means you agree that 'most' don't. I did however say that a flat with it's own front door is in fact a maisonette. So yes, I guess I did say that anything that is truly a 'flat' does actually share a main door with others.

Fact is that sometimes you get more flat for your money than with a house but all of the associated otugoings and compromises make living in a house more practical and more popular. Which is why all those city centre flats (with the exception of London where flat living is a necessity) are empty and prices have fallen dramatically - the demand is simply not there! I've got nothing against flats at all but it is in the majority of cases easier and financially a bit more predictable to live in a house than living in a flat. The compromise of having more space is sharing a building and it's costs and the politics of it all.

Some flats have some features that some houses don't have. However, most flats do not have gardens, do not have their own ground floor front door to get shopping into and no flat is truly freehold. Freehold is the key benefit of owning a house and the key disadvantage of flat ownership.

PasturesNew

My flat was built 25 years ago by Barratts. It is two small brick blocks of two-up-two-down, joined together by a wooden communal hallway and wooden stairs.

The floors/ceilings are wooden too.

Bl00dy noisy.

I have my own parking spot and walk from there about 15 yards, then down some steps, then along about 15 feet to the communal door, that then is pitch dark and you need both hands to turn the key and pull the door. Once inside there are push-button lights, that turn off when people upstairs get half way to their front door.

Going in/out with shopping is a pain in the bum and as it's all shared (and I rent) there's nothing I can do to make it better/easier. Then other bugg4hs come stomping in and slamming the doors up to 3.30am.

The individual front doors to the flats are flimsy too, so it's as sound proofed as living in a bog standard cr4p-build house.

Thermidor

Doozergirl wrote: »

It was a rhetorical question. Virtually every street in London has a large proportion of houses converted into flats. Virtually everyone I knew growing up in London lived in a flat and all of my friends still there, still do. Some in purpose built blocks, some in converted houses with a shared front door, some in flats with their own front door (a maisonette). None of my friends in London ever lived in a new build and none of them in a mansion. The majority of flats are still not new build and not in mansions and most share a front door - even in mansions and new builds. When I do a big shop, I have to go to my car a few times to get it all out. Even with a porter and a lift which cost a fortune, it's easier to chuck stuff through the front door of a house



I did not say that all flats share a communal door at all. Most do - you said most don't. In fact you've just told me now that 'some' have their own front doors which means you agree that 'most' don't. I did however say that a flat with it's own front door is in fact a maisonette. So yes, I guess I did say that anything that is truly a 'flat' does actually share a main door with others.

Fact is that sometimes you get more flat for your money than with a house but all of the associated otugoings and compromises make living in a house more practical and more popular. Which is why all those city centre flats (with the exception of London where flat living is a necessity) are empty and prices have fallen dramatically - the demand is simply not there! I've got nothing against flats at all but it is in the majority of cases easier and financially a bit more predictable to live in a house than living in a flat. The compromise of having more space is sharing a building and it's costs and the politics of it all.

Some flats have some features that some houses don't have. However, most flats do not have gardens, do not have their own ground floor front door to get shopping into and no flat is truly freehold. Freehold is the key benefit of owning a house and the key disadvantage of flat ownership.

Sorry Doozergirl but we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Your statement that virtually all streets in London have a large proportion of houses converted into flats is not true at all. Yes, there are a good proportion of conversions, but by no means do virtually all streets have them. There are THOUSANDS of streets in London which have no conversions at all.

You're wrong about no flat being truly freehold - very wrong. Lots of flats are freehold - my flat in London is! I own the freehold.

However, there are thousands of leasehold properties in London with leases running to 999 years, and many of these can be found in areas such as Belgravia and Mayfair where properties fetch up to £20M. So just because a property is leasehold it doesn't necessarily prove detrimental.

If you buy a flat (sometimes a house!) with a leasehold of just 25 years, then of course that's a big negative! Aand if the lease has several restricting clauses, again it's a negative. But many long leases of 100 years or more are almost meaningless; especially when ground rent can be as low as £10 a year! Don't forget that after a few years you have the right to buy the freehold on most properties.

Doozergirl

Thermidor wrote: »

Sorry Doozergirl but we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Your statement that virtually all streets in London have a large proportion of houses converted into flats is not true at all. Yes, there are a good proportion of conversions, but by no means do virtually all streets have them. There are THOUSANDS of streets in London which have no conversions at all.

You're wrong about no flat being truly freehold - very wrong. Lots of flats are freehold - my flat in London is! I own the freehold.

However, there are thousands of leasehold properties in London with leases running to 999 years, and many of these can be found in areas such as Belgravia and Mayfair where properties fetch up to £20M. So just because a property is leasehold it doesn't necessarily prove detrimental.

If you buy a flat (sometimes a house!) with a leasehold of just 25 years, then of course that's a big negative! Aand if the lease has several restricting clauses, again it's a negative. But many long leases of 100 years or more are almost meaningless; especially when ground rent can be as low as £10 a year! Don't forget that after a few years you have the right to buy the freehold on most properties.

A flat which is truly freehold is unmortgageable. All flats must have a lease. Even share of freehold means you need a lease and the fact it is a flat means that you have neighbours whom you share the bills with. No flat comes with a freehold free of emcumbrances from it's neighbours or no mortgage lender would touch it for the obvious reason that if your upstairs neighbour removed the roof with no lease to state that he legally has to keep it there - your property would be worth nothing. It's therefore safe to say that I know more about leasehold and freehold than you do.

A house is better than a flat. If you could own a flat without having to worry about the next maintenance bill, how much year's service charge will be or even if your one neighbour agrees that the roof needs fixing when they live on the ground floor.

Are you genuinely saying that people should pick a flat over a house? That a new build in Ipswich city centre with it's corporate managing agent that takes the monthly cost over tha of a house is better than the house?

Honestly. Argue the original point instead of mindless circling. You said that most flats are new builds or mansions. The simple fact is that they are not.

Thermidor

Doozergirl,

You are wrong! Where do you get your information from?

ALL flats must have a lease? Who told you that???

Some flats come with the freehold, hence why they have no LEASE! And 'share of FREEHOLD' means there is no LEASE. You share the FREEHOLD - not LEASEHOLD.

How you think it's safe to say that you know more about leasehold and freehold is highly arrogant of you. You don't know anything about me!

And NOT all houses are better than flats! Some houses are nothing more than rabbit hutches, whilst some flats are like palaces! What a ridiculous thing for you to say!

Neither do all flats have these high maintenance and service charges you keep harping on about. Small blocks or mansion houses may have a fund in which the owners of the flats pay a small sum of about £20 a month to go towards the upkeep and maintenance of the roof/outer building etc. But you don't get that with a house do you? You have to foot the whole bill if your roof needs replacing or the guttering comes down.

As for large apartment blocks where the person who owns the ground floor flat agrees that the roof needs fixing - well it is their roof too! And any major leaks or damage to the roof could ultimately damage their property too. I daresay the owners of the flats on the top floor use the ground level when they walk in and out? They need that too don't they?

And I never said that most flats were new builds or mansions. I said SOME were. We all know mansion blocks or converted grand houses fetch a premium in relation to new builds - I never disputed that.

The fact of the matter is, though, that you can often get MORE for your money buying a flat than you can a house. And if you look around you'll find some very beautiful flats out there.

I'm fortunate enough to have both a house and a flat, but I love both of them equally, and I would hate to give up my flat! Indeed, when I am very old and withered I'll probably spend my time in my flat rather than my house.