need help in deciding which floor to purchase on

Doozergirl

Yup. Top floor for me. Nice and cosy warm as the heat rises from downstairs. No noise from above. If it's brand new then the ceiling above you will be stuffed with at least 30cm of insulation!

PasturesNew

A friend of mine's just moved into a flat on the first floor. He has a balcony and said that when he was at Uni and out with his drunk mates, they'd often play "see if you can lob random objects onto balconies".

Position of the whole block plays a major part of any of the external environment issues.

abouttimetoo

Hi Thuf

I just wanted to add another couple of perspectives for you to think about and that is re-sale value and alarms. I live in a flat at the minute and have done so before - both with three stories and both with lifts. In both cases the builders fitted alarms as standard to the ground floors but not the other floors. In addition, when the builders were first selling there was initially a huge difference in purchase prices which then pretty much evened out when the original buyers started to sell. E.g. in the first block I lived in there was a £10,000 increase between buying on the ground floor and the first floor and then another £10,000 between the 1st floor and the second floor, therefore, a £20,000 difference between top and bottom yet when the re-selling started to happen things evened out and the first and second floors were valued and sold for the same price as each other and typically the ground floor was maybe one or two thousand less than those above. It all helped with my profit 8:)

In my second property (where I live now) the ground floor was £15,000 cheaper than the first floor, and the second floor £20,000 more than the first floor so a massive £35,000 difference from top to bottom and once again on re-valuing/selling the top and middle floors are coming out the same (actually the top floor has slightly less square footage and also is in the eaves with slopey ceilings so 'usuable/livable' square footage is less; it's also looking like the ground floor value is currently now only c.£5,000 less than the top floor – a big difference to the £35,000!

Incidentally, both times I've bought on the ground floor and have not suffered from noise problems; as for security, I understand what the other posters are referring to but I agree with one particular poster who said that if you were in a house you would have a ground floor, this is the view I take and I don’t really feel any less secure than I would in a house.

One last thing, various flooring places sell a kind of underlay which guarantees sound-proofing up to an impressive number of decibles – it’s not too expensive either and I think it is something a considerate flat owner should consider as well as recommending to their neighbours ;-)