To ask you all what you think about this property?

[Pariswhenitdrizzles]

Would be interested in buying this -

m.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/43569518

What are your thoughts on this property?

Thanks very much :)

With respect, I don't think it is very helpful to tell someone who wants to buy a three bedroom flat in Kentish Town for 500k to beware of estates and unspecified 'dodgy' streets. You simply cannot buy a period flat in a quiet, fragrant, salubrious street in NW5 for that money, not nearly. It will have to be ex LA, or right next to LA. If you live here and have reliable information about the crime rate or disruption on a specific street or an estate, that's one thing, but saying things like beware of living within half a mile of one 'troubled' street is not helpful, especially when that supposed no-go area has enough of a mixed population to support £2m houses, hipster coffee shops, media offices ...

You cannot avoid social housing in Kentish Town; estates make up the fabric of the place, and even in the poshest period streets, there will be some council tenants. The whole point of the area, why young people want to live here, why it's buzzing, is that it's mixed, and hasn't yet become some airless gentrified ghetto. The location of the OP's flat is a case in point; it's an LA block, and bang opposite it is a converted polytechnic with incredibly chic, high end flats worth millions. 1 minute down the road is a wildly popular hipster pub. Around the corner is a TV production company.

OP - as others have said, and I mentioned to your sister, I think your major concern with buying ex LA is the potential Major Works bill.

Wooooah, that's the second time in as many weeks I've clicked on a "what do you think of this property?" thread and it's been somewhere I've lived before (last week's one was next door, this one's round the corner.)

Unfortunately I can't really provide any useful info as I lived there more than 30 years ago! So I'm sure it's changed a lot since - a lot of gentrification etc. I do have fond memories of it though.

Thanks so much everyone for all of your comments :) just had an email back from the estate agent, who mentioned that they got the lease détails wrong. They'd originally said something like 113 years for the leads, but it now turns out that the lease has 106 years left on it. I'm not sure how much of a problem this might be?

It depends on your mortgage provider - I think most won't touch anything below 85 years.

Depends how long you want to live there for! Once you get below 90 years you'd want to start thinking about extending as it costs a lot more to extend once it's dropped below 80 years. But if you see yourself as being there for 5-10 years, it shouldn't be an issue, I would have thought.

I think the lease length still sounds ok, but the longer the better obviously. I was actually thinking about you Paris when I read something in the Evening Standard yesterday about it possibly being against the terms of your lease and/or mortgage to rent a room out on Airbnb or similar. I see a PP has already mentioned it, but you should check that out if your buying a 3 bedroom depends on doing something like this.
Obviously this won't be a new idea to you, so feel free to roll your eyes at me but if you didn't need a lodger you could be looking at 2 bedrooms.