Feedback for London flat

Laughable isn"t it? The scary thing though is that before mortgage debt went up in price people would have been gagging to buy this with debt tokens! The levels to which the UK public have been brainwashed on property is truly astounding.

I agree with @PancakeCloud too. I’d not look at anything marketed by Foxtons. I’d wait till the contract is up and change agents. In the meantime, the decluttering, decorating and changes could take place.

Poor photos
The lease
The bathroom off the kitchen
Too cluttered and decorated to suit the owner.
The bedrooms are narrow and the flat is small.

It needs a massive declutter and money spending on it to make it appealing. Decorate neutrally and change the kitchen/bathroom if possible.

In the end, it’s the price too. Always the price.

It looks so much like the flat in the peep show

Are you using apps like PropertyLog to follow asking prices in the area, if other sellers are dropping prices and you are trying to hold out for a high price it just won"t sell.

Overpriced and under presented. At that price I’d expect a top notch kitchen, decoration and bathroom. Lease too short, as others have said.

Where on earth does she keep her clothes?!

The kitchen is tiny and really not laid out well for someone who might like to cook. And having a bathroom off it is just awful

Can't help feeling that it's actually a one bedroom flat.

It's a brilliant location, but you'd not be able to park anywhere easily/cheaply if you had a car.

No idea how price compares, but it does seem expensive.

Yes it is for landlords looking to rent out; minimum 4k pcm, and those areas are high demand

Hi OP, as others have said it’s not a great layout. I used to own a flat very near by and have kept an eye on the market. Your friend’s flat is overpriced …. Not unusual for Foxtons I think!

It's horribly stark and black. Really unwelcoming as a living area. I'm astonished that you say that she's an artist, because it really utilitarian. The black sofa has to go and some warmth, brightness and softness brought in.

And yes, the kitchen is just weird with the bathroom carved out if it in a way that means there's barely room to stand at the sink. And where on earth do you put things before and after they're washed up?

ETA I just looked again and on zooming in, yes there is a draining board.

But absolutely no to walking from the toilet directly into the kitchen. Especially when paying £800k

Even if it was the home of my dreams, I'd give anything that Foxtons has any involvement in a wide berth. They're known for massively over-pricing property and being shit to deal with.

That being said, this is a very small, awkwardly shaped flat in an annoying area (conservation areas make renovating more difficult than necessary). There's no entrance hallway, the kitchen is awkward, the living room isn't quite big enough to be a nice louge room/diner, particularly for the high price, and the energy rating is low.

https://property-accelerator.co.uk/landlord-exodus-sparks-surplus-of-homes-for-sale/

Bathrooms off kitchens is very common in both conversions and mansion flats in London - they are usually the former scullery and would originally have not had a bathroom. In that flat I’d have stuck with making the scullery a shower room leaving more kitchen space.

Ditto the lack of a hall - high cost of space means maximising every foot into living space. Same rationale applies to “delightful cottages” which also open direct into living space.

Service charges are not insane atm but obviously not a cost you can control.

Price seems a bit high - not totally out of line for the area but it would need to be immaculate for that price.

Three things would put me off

• short lease
• Foxtons
• I would not want all the furniture (better to sell property with a separate offer of furniture as a separate negotiation).

What price level would you tell the "friend" to go for?

The freeholder owns the freehold/land and administers the lease. Sometimes this is shared out amongst flats and other times it’s one person/company that owns the whole thing.

And yes, since COVID the market for London flats has tanked. People are WFH instead of having to move to, or have a pied a terre in, London.
My friend bought a London flat in 2021, and is now worried sick about ever selling it.

Odds of anyone living in that area owning a car are minuscule.

Great location, I know exactly where this is.

But, the agent is Foxtons. That's enough for me to not proceed.
Other than that, dreadful pictures. Picture 3 is taken with a wide angle lense which has distorted the image and makes me really question how small the room it. The flat is so cluttered, even the hallway by the front door. Your friend needs to majorly declutter and paint the rooms, then get new pictures.

Am not so bothered by the location of the bathroom but the lack of hallway is a dealbreaker.

Tbh, I think it's overpriced by 10-15% (something Foxtons always do). For the same money, I could buy in elsewhere in zone 1 and have more space.

You'd struggle to get a decent mortgage with such short lease and it would be near enough impossible to sell on in a few years. Your friend really needs to extend the lease before doing any other modifications.

It is also absolutely tiny for a 2 bedroom, it's small even for a 1 bedroom but would be slightly more comfortable. I would get rid of bedroom 1 and make a proper bathroom and a proper kitchen, but at least separated from each other. Nobody wants to cook by the toilet. Nice 1 bedroom apartments in that area and with that square footage can easily go for more than 800K.

Been a LL for years not far from these areas and my rental income hasn’t decreased …

I agree that the photos are dreadful. I went straight to the floorplan after seeing one of them, and was shocked to find that it was actually rectangular. Because it looked really oddly shaped in the photo.

I would have expected Foxtons to have given staging advice beforehand and provided an excellent photographer, given their fees. My local small estate agent completely outshines Foxtons in its photography.

First of all flat values have fallen 30% since 2022. So she won’t get now what she would then, but as she bought some time ago she should still do well.

Secondly, relatively short lease, if she has the funds it’s worth thinking about paying to extend. Alternatively the buyer can do so.

Excellent location, flat needs work so she needs to factor that in. Buyer will revamp - possibly turn it into a one bed with an en suite bathroom and a larger living room.

She doesn’t need to do anything to it she just needs a price make sense for the current market and the amount of work.

I’d ditch Foxtons as they’re known to be cowboys - try Winkworth/ Savills/ Hampton/ Knight Frank.

Looking at a recent sale on that road it sold for around £1500 per sq ft whereas hers is £1670 per sq ft. By that rough guide it should sell for around 720k.

This is correct.

The location and the communal garden are great though!

Love it! I wish I could afford it 😞

From the size of the square footage, it's the size of a 1 bed flat and 2 bedrooms have been squeezed in not very successfully (bathrooms off kitchens are a big no no). From my experience buyers in central London are very conscious of square footage and will be thinking this is not a proper 2 bed flat.

There are only 4 rooms and those rooms should be bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom. The smaller bedroom should be turned into a kitchen/diner or luxury bathroom and the then she can have a good sized kitchen and bathroom. The bigger bedroom has to be presented properly with space to get out of bed both sides. If done well, that will make the flat feel much more luxurious which will go down well with buyers in that market/price bracket.

Having said that, it will cost a lot to make those changes so she may be better off just reducing the price sufficiently that a buyer is prepared to go through all the hassle of doing it themselves.