House vs. Flat - Struggling to Decide

akorn77

Current House

• I've owned a 2 bed house in Zone 6 since 2018, which is 5 minutes from the tube station. As it was my first purchase, I ended up in the slightly less nice part of town and now I want to sell and move. I paid £390k and it's currently around £480k. 

•  Also I increasingly found the pre-covid commuting extremely exhausting, so working-from-home has been a total god send for me. I'm also single ( age 30), so living in Zone 6 doesn't have the best social life. I would like to find someone and settle down, but buying a house to future-proof myself for a non-existent wife and kids feels silly to me right now lol  

Current Employment

• I'm self-employed in financial services and change companies typically every 6-12 months. All of my clients are in Zone 1. Although I've been able to work-from-home since the pandemic, I am starting to see more and more firms request Hybrid working or more days in the office. As such, my place of work is very unpredictable and changes every 6 months.  

Dilemma 

• My current school of thought has been: let me sell up, and buy a flat in Zone 2 to future-proof myself against potential commuting and have a better social life. I also think over the next 1-2 years central London will steadily bounce back from Covid. And if I do ever settle down, I'd sell the flat and go buy a house again. However, I do have an underlying fear - what if London doesn't completely recover? And flats remain flat/decrease in price and houses continue to accelerate more in coming years? 
• For context: I have a large deposit, circa £210k and I can obtain a loan of upto £630k so I can buy in nice areas of Zone 2 

Some non-biased rational advice would be very much appreciated...because im tearing my hair out 

P.S. - I am aware of issues around flats i.e. cladding, service charges etc. I have taken these on board - I would avoid all purpose built flats. 

UnderOffer

OK not knowing anything about the zones or the type of flat you can buy for your money, my opinion is…..

I just couldn’t go from a house to a flat, with all the cladding, fire, freehold, leasehold and potential neighbour issues above, below and to the side, this type of purchase would really make me nervous, I’d rather have the longer commute, particularly as it’s not everyday with the flexible working we now find ourselves in. 

Brie

Picking a place based on your most likely commute will be a great idea.  Add to that what makes it easy to get to the social life too.  If say you work mostly in Canary Wharf but like to party in Soho look at your commuter lines and then focus on whatever is available which works well for both of those. 

A nice old house converted to flats would be my choice unless you actually also want to do things like have a garden/bbqs and all those things that often go with house ownership.

AdrianC

Suburban houses are absolutely sellable right now, while central flats have never been harder to shift - because everybody's spent the last year and a bit doing the exact opposite of what you want to do, stirred with EWS1 etc.

Working in the financial sector, you should know better than anybody that it's impossible to second-guess what's going to happen in the future... Anybody who says they know is either clueless or trying to sell you something.

akorn77

AdrianC said:

Suburban houses are absolutely sellable right now, while central flats have never been harder to shift - because everybody's spent the last year and a bit doing the exact opposite of what you want to do, stirred with EWS1 etc.

Working in the financial sector, you should know better than anybody that it's impossible to second-guess what's going to happen in the future... Anybody who says they know is either clueless or trying to sell you something.

I dont think it can get much worse than 2020 was for flats? Data is showing a rebound in flat sales, as the trend reverses a little. But price growth is of course significantly lagging vs. houses. 

Part of my thinking was that theres a nice arbitrage opportunity right now i.e sell the house for top dollar and buy a Zone 2 flat, I would previously not been able to afford, such as a 2 bed in south hampstead or maida vale. Its tricky. 

I'm a north Londoner, so I quite like Highgate (Zone 3) as a half-way house between central and the suburbs. But it has a very low stock of homes due to its popularity. 

AFF8879

If it’s really just social life and commute driving this, why not look for a house near the end of one of the night tube lines? Going from a house to a flat, especially as you say you would want to settle down into a more family-style life in the future, just feels like something you might regret quite quickly…

Alternatively there are places on the outskirts of London that could give you a much better lifestyle and still have really easy direct links into central, e.g. Watford (15-20 mins into Euston) / Sevenoaks (30 mins to London Bridge). Plus those are big enough towns where you could still easily walk to social things like bars, restaurants, cinema etc

bramptonbrew

AFF8879 said:

If it’s really just social life and commute driving this, why not look for a house near the end of one of the night tube lines? Going from a house to a flat, especially as you say you would want to settle down into a more family-style life in the future, just feels like something you might regret quite quickly…

Alternatively there are places on the outskirts of London that could give you a much better lifestyle and still have really easy direct links into central, e.g. Watford (15-20 mins into Euston) / Sevenoaks (30 mins to London Bridge). Plus those are big enough towns where you could still easily walk to social things like bars, restaurants, cinema etc

We have just moved from Watford, but I would recommend it as somewhere easy to get into Central London but still affordable on your budget for a house. We lived near the railway station and the town centre - evening/night time socialising we tended to do in London, but there's a decent amount of bars and pubs in the town centre. It's also been redeveloped over the past ten years or so - when we first moved to Watford it was a bit of a tired old place, but the work that's gone into redevelopment has really made a difference.

newdriver101

OP - I am in a similar situation so have a lot of sympathy with your position.

I also bought my first purchase in zone 6 + will (hopefully) be moving to zone 3/4 next year for a better commute / better quality of life / better social life.

I am purchasing a flat with a similar sort of budget to you but in zone 3/4…. In my case it is a flat-to-flat move - so can’t comment on the house-to-flat aspect of your dilemma…  Although, that said, I would ultimately like to settle down in a house…

As Brie said above, I would look at locations with a good commute into where you normally go in central London rather than focus solely on the zone…. I am not sure why you have focussed on zone 2…  I reckon you would have to compromise a lot on space in zone 2 with your budget…

You can get a good commute/social life (and decent inside/outside space) from several places in zone 3/4….

NameUnavailable

I would stick to a house even if you just move to another outer zone area.

I'm currently trying to buy a flat and having thoughts of pulling out. I chose a flat with no obvious EWS1 issues (no cladding, no balconies, under 18M) then read about PAS9980 which might be an even worse issue for leaseholders!! (read the thread on here or google it).

It's so far taken 5 months for the vendors solicitors to respond to queries regarding the lease and service charge - these aren't issues with most houses, so I need to be aware that if I want to sell at some point it might be a very slow process.......

Read all the info about buying a flat - ground rent issues, service charges, EWS1, PAS9980 and if you do go for a flat, try to avoid as many of the pitfalls as possible!!

But I would stick with the house.

MysteryMe

I wouldn't be selling a house to live in a flat for the reasons you have given. I would look to buy another house in a different area. There are lots of places in outer London and outlying towns with a good social scene as already mentioned. As a self employed contractor you decide whether the contracts on offer are acceptable. If someone offers a role that requires office working 5 days a week you can say thanks but no thanks and chose one that offers more flexibility. 

akorn77

newdriver101 said:

OP - I am in a similar situation so have a lot of sympathy with your position.

I also bought my first purchase in zone 6 + will (hopefully) be moving to zone 3/4 next year for a better commute / better quality of life / better social life.

I am purchasing a flat with a similar sort of budget to you but in zone 3/4…. In my case it is a flat-to-flat move - so can’t comment on the house-to-flat aspect of your dilemma…  Although, that said, I would ultimately like to settle down in a house…

As Brie said above, I would look at locations with a good commute into where you normally go in central London rather than focus solely on the zone…. I am not sure why you have focussed on zone 2…  I reckon you would have to compromise a lot on space in zone 2 with your budget…

You can get a good commute/social life (and decent inside/outside space) from several places in zone 3/4….

Well, I lived in Zone 4 before (most of my life) and still found the commute horrible. It really depends on work. If it's Hybrid working, I'd live anywhere, but I worry more companies will insist on people coming in 4-5 times per day next year. But you're right in that Zone 3-4 would be a decent compromise, except finding houses within budget in those Zones is pretty hard seen as they've all been snapped up! 

MysteryMe said:

I wouldn't be selling a house to live in a flat for the reasons you have given. I would look to buy another house in a different area. There are lots of places in outer London and outlying towns with a good social scene as already mentioned. As a self employed contractor you decide whether the contracts on offer are acceptable. If someone offers a role that requires office working 5 days a week you can say thanks but no thanks and chose one that offers more flexibility. 

Being self-employed, you can't be too picky with contracts. Do you truly believe Hybrid working is here to stay permanently and forever? I can forsee in Spring, companies saying OK covid is over, everyone back in 4-5 days per week. 

NameUnavailable said:

I would stick to a house even if you just move to another outer zone area.

I'm currently trying to buy a flat and having thoughts of pulling out. I chose a flat with no obvious EWS1 issues (no cladding, no balconies, under 18M) then read about PAS9980 which might be an even worse issue for leaseholders!! (read the thread on here or google it).

It's so far taken 5 months for the vendors solicitors to respond to queries regarding the lease and service charge - these aren't issues with most houses, so I need to be aware that if I want to sell at some point it might be a very slow process.......

Read all the info about buying a flat - ground rent issues, service charges, EWS1, PAS9980 and if you do go for a flat, try to avoid as many of the pitfalls as possible!!

But I would stick with the house.

That sounds awful! I think if you pick the right flats, its OK. I was going to buy a leasehold flat in Hampstead last year, and the legal work took only 6 weeks. It was a converted Edwardian house, with a long lease. 

Now that I see everyones feedback, understandably there is a huge sway towards houses. I think alot of my question depends on how the office re-openings shape up next year... I'll be looking for my new contract very soon, so I will see what kind of arrangement companies out there are offering. If it's mostly wfh or max 2 days in the office after spring etc. that will shove me towards houses, but if its the other way round, flats will surely make a resurgence.