What is the value of your flat compared to pre-Covid/year ago?

[WombatChocolate]

I keep reading about property price rises of over 10% in this last year. However I know that it hasn’t been even across the country and houses have been in big demand and city flats (esp without gardens) have struggled.

What do you think has happened to your flat’s value and where is it?

Mine is a Home Counties maisonette - 1 bed with good transport links and small private garden. Zoopla is pricing it at about 15% more than when I bought it 2 years ago. Realise Zoopla not always accurate.

Most flats round here seem to be about £10k more than a year ago, but lots appear to be reduced.

I’m not selling, but just wondered what people are finding.

[quote GorgeousLadyofWrestling]@robotcollision yeah I expected the same because I kept hearing that about flats. I don’t know if it makes any difference but we’re zone 4 in south London that’s very green so perhaps that along with the gardens makes lockdown feel less hemmed in? The gardens really are massive. It’s a huge purpose build estate and feels huge but also private. It’s apparently a desirable place within our little corner of SE London. Because the flats are all identical it’s easy to get a realistic sense of prices. There’s about 96 in total and the ones that have sold in the last year/18 months have all massively increased.[/quote]
I'm super curious about where this is because I think I might know...no worries if you don't want to say! If it's where I'm thinking (Crystal Palace triangle area), I've viewed a couple of flats there and felt they were expensive for what was being asked, but maybe I'm just clueless!

I might also be alone in feeling like communal gardens in purpose built blocks are essentially pointless...maybe nice to have some green, but I'd never use them and would rather just go to the park if I didn't have my own outside space. I definitely wouldn't consider somewhere more valuable for having communal gardens vs no garden but perhaps I'm an oddball?

@WombatChocolate

Yes, I think communal gardens can be beautiful and large, but people ideally want some private outside space. It doesn’t have to be large or even particularly lovely for lots of people, as many don’t want the bother of much gardening anyway, but they do want somewhere to sit outside with a small table and chairs, and to feel the fresh air in private. Communal gardens can be absolutely beautiful, but you can never guarantee you’re alone, or a neighbour won’t come along ….and people just want some private space.

I’ve seen flats with a tiny ugly balcony, or the smallest terrace imaginable, which really will only fit a tiny table and 2 chairs and one or 2 potted plants, and they have sold faster, even if the terrace seems to be fronting onto the car parking spaces. People like to have their back door or patio doors open onto private open space, letting the fresh air in and being able to move outside. Most flats only have the one door and not only is the private outisde space missing, but also that ability to fully open a door to the outside and ‘let the outside in’ as the expression seems to be. Being couped up in lockdown made being able to do that seem more important. And once people could meet outside and still not inside, unless you had that small outside space, you had no ability to have friends round. Even a tiny terrace could mean a friend sitting there for coffee, which felt more of a step forward than meeting in a park or communal space.

I agree with all of this but also have the feeling it's very much a pandemic thing that isn't all that likely to last? When covid started I was living in a first floor flat with a small, rubbish garden shared with downstairs and before covid had never even entertained the idea of making it nice or sitting in it because I was too busy doing other things and hardly ever home. Once the pandemic started it was suddenly like heaven to have a tiny bit of outside space to sit out and have a coffee, and to be able to potter in the garden, but it feels like those are very specific circumstances? We weren't even allowed to sit in a park at that point. I've since rented a nice spacious flat with huge balcony because I'm spending so much time at home but again, only because of the pandemic. Once it's all properly over I think I'd rather just be closer to central again with good transport links! I have a gut feeling that things will go much more back to the old normal than a lot of people seem to think, but maybe I'm wrong?

I have a gut feeling that things will go much more back to the old normal than a lot of people seem to think, but maybe I'm wrong?

I think things will be more normal but maybe not quite as before. Increased hybrid working will probably mean people want their homes to be different or do more. Outdoor space? who knows. Pandemics are more common these days & Im sure we will experience more and certainly the idea of staying home will probably be more common.

staying home when i'll

ill

@Rozziie during the pandemic, people had picnics in them, the children use it extensively. It is so large they can ride their little scooters around. There were women in bikinis down there at one stage, would be quite hard to walk to the park in a bikini. I don't really use it but I am not a garden person and never used my private garden when I had one. I think it's useful for kids though as the kids in my development basically have inbuilt friends and they pay together like a huge pack of 10. they look so happy! My husband and I both grew up in houses with gardens and we were like, maybe if we lived in flats, we would have had more friends!

@Rozziie I really do think it's up to personal preference. I think that when people have children, they basically want to replicate their childhood and most people grew up in the suburbs and the sticks so they want big houses with gardens. Also they probably watched those home programmes with this presenter called Kirsty so have an idea that they want to climb the property ladder unlike my DH who has never had a TV in his life. My DH only wants to live in zone 2/3 (and in north London) so it means we will probably be in a flat, but he did grow up in zone 3 and I grew up in a city state. As for young single people, I think they are more willing to live further out due to Instagram glamourizing large beautiful homes and it's a lot harder to boast about living in Highgate- you can always Instagram yourself in Highgate village without living within walking distance.

I think the pandemic would be over at some stage and we wouldn't stay home forever. I lived in a country badly affected by SARS when I was 11 , also missed school as a result, but really in 28 years, only experienced 2 pandemics where I was personally affected. The time spent in normal times was far more. Maybe the next major pandemic is in 10 years time but that is still really faraway.

@onlychildhamster Well you don't walk to the park in a bikini...you put it on under your clothes like you would going to the beach?! Lying in a communal area overlooked by dozens of neighbours and not sure who might be watching from a window would be super uncomfortable to me but maybe I'm odd! I can see how it would be nice for kids, yeah.

@onlychildhamster I'd certainly hope it's at least that far away and that it won't be as bad as this one! I wasn't in Asia for SARS but as far as I understand it, there was nowhere near this level of shutdown, flights continued as normal, etc. covid feels more like a once in a hundred years type of thing in terms of the global reach and the number of people affected and killed by it.