To want to sell my house and move into a shiny new flat.

[greystripedteepee]

I'm fed up of house crap- bricks needing replacing, the garage being used to hoard things, garden looking crap, not using a lot of rooms etc. Saw an amazing penthouse flat and I'm wondering if ironically I would have a better quality of life living in a flat. I know lots of people want the detached house and garden but isn't it just a lot of stress. With the flat we would be city location rather than village just outside the city. Feels like step backwards to go from house to flat but it is so appealing! Not sure what my DH and DD would say. Probably would be great in ten years when she is a teenager.

Cross sodding posted.

Some (very well off) friends moved from a huge house to a big gorgeous top floor flat in the city a couple of years ago.

They love it. They walk to work, don't have to worry about gardening or snow shoveling, it's much cheaper to run, they have amazing views of the ocean.

You’re not unreasonable at all. I did this a year ago. I had a 1930’s semi which was lovely but there was a constant list of things to do. I bought a 1970’s ground floor garden flat with good proportion rooms. It needed a lot of updating but even with that I have a much smaller mortgage. It is in a lovely part of town, with views over the harbour and sea as well as very easy walking distance of town. I love it. I find I am doing more as not feeling tied to do things in the house.

I'm currently sitting in my top floor flat, with balcony, view onto woods, 5 min walk into town.

I hate it, I would do anything for a garden.

DH and i want to live in a converted warehouse apartment in the city centre when the kids are gone. Imagine being able to wander round and pop into galleries, the cinema etc? we'd be able to get rid of the car etc. We are lucky in that eldest DD has already got her own house but as soon as the little ones are gone, we hope to be too!

we're lucky that our family has a holiday home 90mins away which we have use of and can use for putting people up etc if necessary.

Wouldn't live in a flat if you paid me.
My boyfriend owns a top floor of a flat. His service charge is extortionate. You can hear the neighbours having a piss if it's really quiet. The communal areas, despite being regularly "cleaned" are skanky and a dumping ground for peoples crap (prams/bikes etc). You can hear people stomping up and down the communal stairs and just letting the doors slam.
The bin areas are a breeding ground for rats. I don't know what it is about flats, but all the ones I've been to people just have no idea how to put rubbish in bins. There's rubbish everywhere.
The street noise, that's just awful. It's a busy street, and on weekends you get all the piss heads being drunk and loud passing at all hours of the morning.
I'm sure there is such a thing as a nice flat, but I've sure as hell never been to one (I have had a few flat living friends/ex-boyfriends and they've all shared similar traits).

Flats are great. Service charge can be a bit though and because management companies have such hassle actually extracting service charge from everyone, services that you have paid through the nose for can sometimes really suffer.

@greystripedteepee We have had this done to ours, was about £60,000 for the full side return.

www.buildteam.com/project-gallery/gallery.html

Also, by living in a flat, we get to live in central London. No WAY could we afford a house around here. I love flats.

We live in a period conversion at the moment though, and it's really not fit for purpose. We hear EVERYTHING from the lady above, so presumably she hears everything from us, and the guy downstairs is demented. I think when we move next, unless I am completely seduced by another inappropriate conversion, we'll go for a modern, purpose built flat with proper floors.

YANBU. I live in a large two-storey garden flat in a Victorian terrace. It has beautiful 'bones' – high ceilings, great proportions etc – and I like my neighbours very much, but I never have time or money to look after the garden or keep up repairs.

I fantasise about moving into a smaller, brand-new flat with a nice simple terrace/balcony (I'd have a few herbs in pots) and nothing crumbling or flaking or falling apart.

A new flat won’t suddenly keep itself clean.

It sounds like you are just not very organised if you have a garage full of crap and a scruffy garden, you will still have the same crap in a flat but without the outside space.

How do you need bricks replacing in a 6 year old house?

'Also if one of your neighbours has a leek' ....

It depends on what you mean by a flat though.

Some flats are massive and and fancy and luxurious and have privacy and good soundproofing and feel like living in a house with none of the hassles of house living but some are dingy little shitholes with terrible neighbours.

Just like houses I suppose.

I lived in flats for years and am now in a semidetached house.

I'd go back to a flat if it was right but it really would need to be right.

That's not true IME TheJoy, we had much less stuff when we lived in a flat. Not having a place to put things means that it gets chucked out much more quickly, there isn't the same pressure to keep editing the DC's clothes and toys so there are far more in a house. Similarly, things that you might need in the future or that you don't know what to do with but are too good the throw away tend to get put into the garage/shed/cupboard of a house only to need to throw them away a decade later, whereas in a flat they probably would never even have crossed the threshold in the first place.

Wow , I obviously didn't mean the vegetable.

I'll take my sleep deprived brain off to another thread.

Thanks.

OP can you get over it by holidaying in Airbnb-style rentals in places that appeal? Secretly hoping you post a link to your dream apartment BTW.

I realise that we do like city living (where we live now we only need to use the car to go out at weekends - shops/schools/restaurants etc are an easy walk away). Some might call it cliquey, but most of the families in our terrace have been there for at least a decade and DD has so many friends within a 1/2 mile radius.

When my elderly mum was reluctant to move we did think about letting half her garden become allotments (possibly only a goer in the suburbs).

OP maybe you need to get one room pristine/to your taste and standards. Likewise tidy up part of the garden or lavish some attention on some pretty window boxes so they obscure the view!

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52755828.html

How do I do a click link?

This type of flat. I'm imagining having it very minimalistic and Scandi style. I probably am being unreasonable! I think I definitely am craving the life of someone young free and single (with a big flat!)

My house is done to my style and I'm bloody lucky to have it and having too much space is a silly problem to have but being a fairly standard modern estate house it will never have that edgy cool vibe that I am after. Tell me cool vibes aren't really worth it!

YANBU! I've made this "backwards" step following separation. When living in the victorian house with garden I couldn't have imagined wanting to move to a modern flat, but it's fab! We have a large shared garden if we want to use it, but don't have to look after it (that's covered in the service charge, which is not too bad really). Have a balcony so can grow plants there. And yes it's more central and near the shops, which I prefer. And it's less snooty and the neighbours are nicer (if not "naicer").

Of course I still have to clean and maintain my own property, but don't have a lot of the problems associated with an old house (damp, broken roof tiles, blah) and it feels more secure too.

When I lived in flats before when I was younger, the main downside was noisy neighbours. (Though of course you can have neighbour problems with a house too.) We don't have that here, but that is probably just luck. But I have a lot of older neighbours which is ideal.

damp, broken roof tiles

God, the damp, roof and the gutters are the bane of my life.

That Norwich flat has pretty beams but I wouldn't fancy a flat with nearly all skylights. It doesn't look very bright.

This is nice: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64744909.html

Yes yes that Bristol one is lush and I like Redcliffe

Both those flats are really lovely- especially the bathrooms. I find purpose built flats usually (not always) have lovely bathrooms. Anyway, I love the idea of chic apartment living, and hate garden maintenance, so I've always wanted a really lovely flat (ideally a loft/penthouse) but I also want to live in the country and have pets!

I think the downsides are definitely the service charges and potentially taking longer to sell if you do ever need to move. I know a few people who bought flats with reasonable service charges but have had huge percentage increases year on year and now they want to move, they are a bit stuck as the high service charge puts people off buying and there is a smaller market for flats anyway.

yanbu

My old lady plan is to retire to my home town and live here

promenade.co.uk/the-prom-apartments-new-brighton/

LadyLance I have a friend in this position as well, it sounds so stressful. They're actually suing the management company at the moment. I wonder if this is a new thing of these freeholding companies/landlords getting more grasping? I've lived in flats or known people living in flats for 20 years and only started hearing these kinds of stories recently.