House or flat?

mildredalien

My partner and I are starting to look at places to buy, and we are finding that we can either afford a house in an 'OK' area or a flat in a lovely area.

The houses we can afford are generally terraces around the city center and in areas where there are a mixture of students and families. This means they can be a bit busier/noisier and not so well kept. In areas we love a little bit further out, the houses tend to be quite a lot larger so out of our price range, but some have been split down into flats which are more affordable. I'm not sure I'd want to buy a flat and we may only be able to go for ground floor flats as we have cats. But we would get a much more affordable place in a nicer area.

Just curious what would you do? Anyone had to make a similar choice? Did you regret the choice you made?

dimbo61

a house every time but we live in a cheap part of the country.
Cheshire where prices are not that crazy yet!

good_advice

This question was posted not so long ago!
The outcome of the debate was for the house.

mildredalien

dimbo61 wrote: »

a house every time but we live in a cheap part of the country.
Cheshire where prices are not that crazy yet!

Ah I wish we could say the same I console myself by reminding myself at least I don't live in London!!

retepetsir

We are in the South East and bought our first property, a large 2-bedroom flat, in 2011. Looking back we wished we'd waited and gone straight for a house. We're now in one, but it took a while to save again and move!

It was a large flat built in the late 60's, in a small block of 14. Unfortunately the management company were not great so the service charges were unpredictable, along with issues we'd experienced with the block and neighbours. To name a couple:

- Service charge fluctuating between £100-200 a month, £2400 a year is a lot! Think of that towards a house mortgage instead.
- Questionable items on the service charge bill, including management fee.
- Ground rent.
- Lease, you have to make sure its long enough!
- Upstairs boiler regularly leaking into our flat as their landlord chose not to fix it properly or replace.
- Regular issues such as main drain being blocked and emergency callouts to rectify - caused by one family flushing their nappies down the toilet?!

This was obviously for a leasehold flat.

Just my experience, but I'd go with a house over a flat any time...

mildredalien

Yikes, that is a lot to think about when buying a flat (flushing nappies down the toilet, really?!)

Our 'head' is saying house but I suppose 'heart' is saying... well really it's saying buy a house in a lovely area, it's just my bank balance that's saying no

ambioni

I would always say that the worst property in the nicest area will always be better than the nicest property in the worst area....there is a LOT to be said for living in an area that has low crime, nice neighbours, good amenities even if the house/flat isn't great (because you can change the property you live in but you can't change the area around you). So- I would probably go for the flat in your case, particularly if it is top floor and in a well maintained block.

missbiggles1

I'd go for a ground floor conversion with a garden in a nice area, which is what we've bought several times and where we've been very happy. I've also found far fewer problems with services in this sort of property than there is in a block with a management company, so worth looking for somewhere with shared freehold where the owners manage things themselves.

There's a lot of snobbery in the UK about flats, which is one of the reasons for the housing shortage.

mildredalien

You have a point ambioni. In some of the areas we are looking at flats, they are often one large house split down into two flats so we wouldn't have to deal with a huge block and lots of neighbours. I suppose we would have to look carefully into who owns the house and what the maintenance/service agreements were.

Then again we have already ruled out some of the 'rougher' areas for houses so we wouldn't be massively worried about high crime rates. It's very interesting looking at the prices though for different areas. East of one particular road you can get a house for £180k - £200k, move 2 minutes walk to the west and the flats can be £220k and upwards!!

movilogo

Remember, in England/Wales you never own your flat - you only lease it from a management company!

If you can afford, always go for freehold house. Flats for renting, houses for own living

benjus

movilogo wrote: »

Remember, in England/Wales you never own your flat - you only lease it from a management company!

Actually you lease it from the freeholder. Which might also be the management company but frequently isn't.

movilogo wrote: »

If you can afford, always go for freehold house. Flats for renting, houses for own living

Well that's true by definition, since leasehold is legally speaking a form of renting (although very different to shorthold tenancies).

I disagree with the advice to always go for freehold over leasehold. Last year when we bought a place it came down to choosing between houses (which were mostly cramped and pokey) or the flat which we eventually bought (spacious and more floor area than any of the houses we looked at). We went for what we considered to be the better property, without worrying too much about the tenure (of course we checked out the lease and everything before buying).

Living in a flat can be great IF you manage to buy somewhere with a good management company (i.e. not run by one of the rip-off large management companies that charge a fortune and do as little as they can get away with). In our case it's run by the residents of the building who are almost all owner-occupiers and take good care of their homes.

In summary - go for the property you like best. If it's leasehold check the lease carefully and if possible do some research on the management company.