If you live in a flat do you find people...

[UserThenLotsOfNumbers]

...look down on you a little bit and assume you'll eventually move out of your "starter home" and into a house?

It doesn't bother me what people think, but this has been my experience and I'm curious if any other flat dwellers experience the same thing?

I live in a large 1960s two bed flat, with my husband and young daughter. We may eventually move but don't have to. We're pretty happy here and have good neighbours so feel lucky.

Ha ha, yes. We don't live in a flat now but when we did there were a few comments from people as if they felt sorry for us. It was a lovely big flat in a Victorian hours and we loved it.

"As if they felt sorry for us"
Haha! Yes I can totally relate to this. Plus the concerned look!

I think it depends where you live? Unless you’re incredibly wealthy then often living in a flat is a choice to stay in a central urban area versus moving out to the suburbs. I know quite a few people living in flats worth 7 figure sums in big cities, mostly London, New York and Paris- I don’t think anyone in their right mind would feel sorry for them! Flats don’t necessarily equal starter homes.

Nope, everybody does it - but then I am in a different country.

We recently sold our 2bed garden flat and bought a 4bed maisonette. We have no intentions of buying a whole house as the cost is prohibitive in the tiny location we want to be in.

Everyone we know asked why we werent buying a house/dont you want x or y/another flat?

Our flat is huge. Its a house. Just happens to be on top of another house

It definitely depends on location and indeed country, context is everything here!
Ours is a 2 bed on a suburban housing estate, not in London.
Ours is also a large flat, easily as big as house. I agree sometimes location is more important.

I think it might depend on the flat. We have a ‘penthouse apartment’ also known as top floor flat between Birmingham city centre and the jewellery quarter. People who use it love it and tell us we’re very lucky - which, indeed we are. I can’t imagine people looking down on the full time residents either.
I think with a family a house is easier for a variety of reasons but I can’t see one is better or worse.

We have had 3 houses since finishing study. As soon as DD is old enough not to want a garden we're moving to a lovely big flat. They make lots of sense. I definitely don't look down on flats. Some do. My granny is 93 and is far too 'proud' to move from her 3 bed semi with lots of stairs to a lovely flat.

We live in a 4 bedroom ‘flat’ - part of a Victorian house, worth £750k - people look at us with pity and ask why we didn’t just buy a proper house? Because a house in this area costs £1.2m!

We live in a flat. 2 bedrooms, main road, no parking and no garden. Me, DH and 2 DDs. People look down on us and assume we are poor. We are early 30's with 7 years left on our mortgage and not too far from London. I could mortgage to the hilt until the end of time to buy a house, but why would I want to? I want to travel, go on adventures and have a great life when I'm mortgage free by 40.

I don't live in a flat but have never looked down on anyone who does - why would I? Lots of people live in beautiful flats. My husband works away and has a flat, second floor, people on ground floor have kids and the flats are gorgeous.

WTF? This is very much an 'English' thing. If we lived in New York we'd nearly all be in apartments.

No, but then I don't have kids so I am living in a cool-bachelor-pad rather than a sad-not-a-proper-home-those-poor-kids-they-need-a-garden.

(or if they don't like me they probably think sad-spinster-flat but they still don't assume I'll move out)

I don't think people look down, but I do find myself justifying living in a flat, even though it has everything a house does (and I have a parking space which none of the houses on our road do).

I love our flat, other than I am sick of sharing the communal parts/ front door and people in the other flats coming and going at all ours. Other than that it's perfect!

When I was a child I assumed that people who lived in flats were extremely poor but that’s because flats were virtually unheard of where we lived. I don’t think I even went into a flat until I was around 15 and I found it very strange. Now it’s totally normal and I see a house as luxury!

Yeah people seem to presume I live in a massive block of flats too
My block is 4 flats, and I'm ground floor with private garden so no different to a house really. I lived in a house before this

I used to get it all the time. I loved our old flat, it was huge and airy and just lovely. But people always gave us this sympathetic look, like it was some great hardship. Our neighbours were lovely, we all chatted in the communal areas and I miss it a lot.

We live in a beautiful, character terrace from the 1920's now. It's amazing with loads of history, our neighbours are brilliant and it's in an amazing location. But still we get the concerned, slightly judgemental looks about it.

Why can't people accept our family doesn't want or need a 3 bed semi right now and that we love the community we get living so close to others. I don't judge them for wanting lots of space and privacy!

No because my dad is 86 and he lives in a flat. If he is waiting for his "starter home" he better get a move on.

In reality though it depends where the flat is. If it's in a large city that is very expensive then I would not think they would move. If it is a small flat in a rural town/large village, I would assume they would move to a house if they wanted something bigger but I don't look down on them at all.

I love my flat. It is ground floor with my own entrance and garden. It is perfect for me. Most people around here live in houses so I do feel different

I don’t think I even went into a flat until I was around 15 and I found it very strange

I was 18 when I first went into a flat. It was a tenement flat in Glasgow.

I grew up in an area where most of the houses were 4 in a block council houses so I suppose they were flats, 2 upstairs and 2 downstairs, we lived upstairs. But I had never been in a building where more than one house shared a front door or a garden until I was 18.
I have already picked out the flat with a sea view I want to move to when my kids move out.

Many flats cost more than houses, and some are bigger. If you want city living, you are likely to live in a flat.

Regardless - cant see see why anyone feels they are superior because they live in what they see as a better accomodation.

We love our flat, it's far more spacious than the cramped terrace we were in before. I want to build my own house eventually, but it would be a bungalow, so just a flat with no neighbours

Hey Knitwit. How strange, the first flat I ever went into was also a tenement in Glasgow!

I imagine some definitely would. A lot of people are snobbish dicks, we get looked down on because we have a very small house with no garden for our "poor DC". We do have a lot of parks nearby and it's a great location but that's not what people see.

I swear a caravan we stayed in once was bigger than our house never mind a flat 😂 and I've been in some massive flats, I'd love to swap with some of them!

Thanks for all your replies!
Yay for flats!