Buying a flat above a restaurant

satchmeister

silverchair wrote: »

I would never buy above a restaurant for the same reason as others have stated. I used to rent a flat above a sweet, little cafe. Nice enough, until the owners decided to hire it out for all night functions. The functions made it into a night club. Music blaring until 4am in the morning 7 days a week. People smoking & shouting outside my bedroom window. Fights in the car park (again below my bedroom window), police cars etc. It was absolute hell.
You have had a very lucky escape!

Thank goodness you rented, imagine trying to sell that place or even rent it out. I guess in the old days when people 'lived over the shop' it was OK as you were above your shop - Margaret Thatcher when she was growing up springs to mind, but when you have, as you point out, no control why would anyone buy it?

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yours is probably nice and big and light and posh ... and London has lots of parks that you're probably near. For most people, in most towns, a flat over a shop is a grim, dirty, enclosed and depressing space... and it's not worth going out to try to walk somewhere better as there's limited options outside the door.

We are within 5 minutes' walk of 3 squares / gardens / parks, true.

robin_banks

When we lived in central London, there was a kebab shop on one side and a cafe on the other on ground floors. Kebab shop open till 3 am. Nice.

MoneyLawyer

Came across this thread on the off chance and just wanted to say that I bought recently above a restaurant and have not regretted it. I got a lot more space for my money and was able to move into a desirable area. Similar flats to the one I bought in the surrounding areas would have been totally out of my price range.
It was more difficult to get a mortgage but not impossible.

There are huge benefits to buying above commercial, especially in London where affordable housing with space is hard to come by. Another plus point is that buying above commercial doesn’t lower rental value.

I for one would highly recommend

PasturesNew

MoneyLawyer wrote: »

... bought recently ...not regretted it.

Yet.

The time for regrets is when you try to sell it.

silverchair

The problem is that once the restaurant has decided to close you have no control over what business moves in

Angela_D_3

nooooooooooo don't do it, I rented a flat above a shop for 6 months was bloody awful, did not help that it was a bookies but even so imagine the noise you'll go insane in under a year.

kingstreet

I'm with greenmoneysaver here.

Before you buy anything like this, make some calls.

- Can you insure it?

- How much is the insurance?

When you regain consciousness, see how you feel about it now.

Richard_Webster

A flat over a shop or restaurant is going to be much harder to value and I would suspect in times of rising property prices, people will pay just under what a similar flat not over a shop/restaurant would fetch, but in more depressed times, nobody is going to be interested and the price will fall dramatically.

Some folk think that valuations are somehow set in stone and there is some law that e.g. a flat over a restaurant must always be worth X% less than a similar flat not over a restaurant.

So, e.g if a "normal" flat is worth £150K at the moment and a similar flat over shop/restauarant is worth £112.5K - 25% discount, if prices fall generally and "normal flat is worth £100K do not assume that the cheaper one will now be worth £75K - it might only sell for £50-60K! On the other hand in a real boom time the figures might be £200K and £170K and the person who buys it innocently assumes a 15% differential which could be wildly out in the future!

This kind of ratio is never to be relied on with any slightly unusual property and people can lose out big time by making that kind of assumption.

Owain_Moneysaver

greenmoneysaver wrote: »

2) A3 usage means lots of insurance hurdles as they are deemed a higher fire risk,

Especially if business is doing badly and needs a refit which the owners can't afford, someone accidentally leaves the cooker on overnight ...