To worry about a detached house on the street being converted into flats?

[commuters30]

Further down a road we have been looking at where all the houses are detached, there is a couple that is being converted into a block of 9 - 12 flats.

I know there will be noise and dirt during construction and the road will inevitably get busier, but is it as bad as I fear? More noise, more traffic, more cars on the curb, less safe... Or is this over thinking irrationally?

Would this fact alone affect your decision as to whether or not you would live on that road or choose to live elsewhere?

It would affect my decision, especially if they are being converted into HMOs where robbing landlords try to squeeze every inch of space to make more units and therefore more money.
HMOs change the whole character of a neighbourhood and parking issues alone can cause difficulty for other residents.

Why would it be less safe?
I’m the only whole house in my row. But that’s a lot of flats to carve out of a house - are the houses really big?
Planning would have specified parking arrangements. Have you seen the plans?
It wouldn’t put me off buying a house nearby, but I don’t know the context (quiet village? Deep suburbia? Town?)

Yeah the house being converted is pretty big. It's 6 spaces for 9 flats. Planning all approved on the basis the road is quiet and lots of off street parking

Doesn’t sound like a mass high rise, just 9 likely young professionals moving in. As for building work, anyone of your neighbours could do works I think YABU

Yanbu: once one house is converted to flats it sets a precedent for other houses being granted permission on the grounds it’s no longer “out of character for the area”. run like the wind. unless you REALLY like the house.

Unless it’s a spectacular character house, ideal location and you have significant off road parking I would run...

@aethelfleda and @horsemenoftheaclopalypse (such a hard one to type!!!) the house is great for our commute, so it's such a difficult one to balance... Whether it really matters if there are a few more flats (no high rises) when day to day we will be at work or indoors and only realise there are flats when we go in or out of the home. Hmmm

the noise will be temporary (though may last for several months each time): you can only convert each house once.... it may impact on property value if the road becomes known for HMOs,
if they are naice private flats it might be okay but you may find parking gets more difficult or the roads get congested.
hard to predict. if you can find a house in a similar place without this issue, that would be better. but if you loved the house in every other way it may be worth trying.

Sorry

I think the main thing for me would be parking and devaluation.

We are buying at the minute and housing stock is crap so I feel your pain in terms of it ticking most of the boxes.

I'd be worried that flats with young professionals in may be more likely to be party central in a way a detached family house is unlikely to be. So are you close enough that you would hear stereos/parties, etc?

I backed away from the 'perfect' house due to a similar set up. 10 years on, almost every house in the road has been converted, and the parking is dire. Just my experience, but it does happen. We had a lucky escape, and are quite happy living next to a field of sheep!

There are around ninety houses on our street, about 8 or 9 are flats all contain either young professionals (we live five minutes walk from mainline to London) or elderly people as the flats are light, spacious and have gardens. The house next to us has two flats occupied by women in their seventies and eighties, it doesn't lower the tone....

Oh and the young commuters are all heading for the station around 7am, not partying until the early hours...

HMO stands for house of multiple occupancy, if a house has been converted into flats it can't be a HMO because the flats are separate dwellings.
It really does depend on where the house is and how well the conversion is being done, will it blend in or stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe go and have a look at the plans before you decide. It doesn't have to be a deal breaker

Depends on the area a lot, around here i wouldn't worry as it's pretty expensive so of no use to HMO's. But I'm confused how you get 9 bedsits even from a house, mine is a large 5 bed detached and you would struggle to get 4 or 5 tiny flats

DP used to rent a flat in a huge Edwardian house that had been converted into 9 flats. The landlord had also built a block of 5 flats in the grounds.

Despite being tenanted, it was blissfully quiet and there were no parking issues as there was plenty of parking. In fact, until the cunt of a landlord decided I wasn't allowed to park there because I wasn't a resident, no-one from the flats parked on the road.

I got my revenge though (not just for the parking thing, he was a shit in many other ways). It was a stunning building, with lots of original features, and I asked English Heritage to consider it for listing.

It's listed grade 2 now. Bastard landlord wanted to split 2 of the flats into 2 smaller ones, and his planning application was turned down.

Houses being turned into flats is not good for an area TBH. The issues of parking ,more people in the road and so on .The problem is now more and more houses in town can become HMO really !.My son used to live in a terraced house (student!) in a large town .All of the rooms inc Attic were let !.So 7 people in a 3 bed cottage really !£350 each !x 7 = 2.5k p/m !.They are not going to turn that down!..Maybe look into the suburbs /longer commute?

Views are so divided! On one hand some are saying noise, traffic, parties and homes will down value so get out ASAP.

Others seem to be saying it's OK and won't be that bad as they aren't high rises.

Is there any chance the value of the property goes UP as detached homes are less given more are converted into flats... Or is that wishful thinking?

I’d be fine moving into a house after the work, but having lived through my neighbours renovating their house, I’d be wary. We had months of vans parking in the street, noise and shouting from 7am every day, even weekends, and lots of dust and dirt. Plus it went on for about a month longer than scheduled and this was just one 3-bed house! I can imagine it’ll be a huge project.

@evermorelenore I hadn't thought of that - how long a 9 flat build will take (they are tearing down the house and rebuilding). Hmm.....

I live in a block of 12 flats on 5 floors, which replaced a single house. We watched this block being built, since we lived down the road at the time. It took about 9 months to build it, and yes there were often a lot of vans and trucks around the area from all the tradesmen. It didn't take long to demolish the old place - just a few days - but then they had to dig a 2-level basement for offroad parking. It wasn't dirty or dusty - the entire building was wrapped in plastic for the entire build. To me, the parking annoyances were the worst part of the whole thing. And that was more a temporary annoyance since there were not always tradesmen there , they left early and were not there on weekends. If you like the area I wouldn't let this put me off.

Does the house have its own parking? If all the other houses have space for off road parking, it might not be too much of a problem, but if you have to start competing with more cars for limited on street space, pain in the arse, especially for shopping, holidays, heavy deliveries etc.

A few things to consider :-

Why are the current owners moving ?
Are these flats being advertised yet ? How much are they ? (Add up the amounts, is there a big profit ?)
Ask others in the street about the flats.
Have other houses been sold recently.
Check the council planning to see if any other houses in the street have made planning applications.

Where I live they are busy tearing down beautiful 4/5 bed detached houses and putting in blocks of flats in their place. I am currently looking out at what used to be three Edwardian houses with big gardens but is now a building site and will eventually be 40 flats. It’s not ideal but the noise and dust will be over soon and people have to live somewhere.

I am grateful we don’t want to sell right now as no-one would put an offer in whilst the building work is in progress. Once it’s all finished it may or may not adversely effect the property value - we’ll have to wait and see I’m hoping not.

Thanks so much for all the thoughtful comments - I hadn't thought of most of these points!!!

@Birdie6 that's good to know that they might wrap the whole thing to reduce the level of dust and dirt!

The house has its own parking so we won't actually be affected by parking, but more an eyesore of lots of offstreet parking as the apartments won't have anywhere near enough. Maybe I'm just being unnecessarily picky...

I hadn't even thought about how much the flats will be sold for. The house hasn't been knocked down yet so build hasn't started, and no advertising yet, so no idea... I'm really hoping it shouldn't be rented out for dirty cheap rates right?!

I have no idea whether ultimately in 5 to 10 years the price will be affected. But I was hoping that if we can put up with temporary dust (even if 9 months), and don't mind that it's a flat (well, what difference does it REALLY make when you're living inside most of the time or in your own garden?), then it doesn't have any real impact...