Large flat vs small house, and a mega price difference

[Steth123]

We live in large two bed flat on a quiet street very close to the station and easy to get around the area. Its sixties, 780 sq ft (stairs are communal) and solid concrete. It’s share of freehold, top floor (2nd floor), end of row, no one passes our door, next door I can barely hear and beneath the lady is quiet. Ground rent is zero and the service charge is small. It has a south facing balcony and communal garden. The living room is massive, so is the main bedroom, the second is average. There are two nurseries on our road and a park just beyond.

The flat is worth about £380k and 3 bed house across the road is about £800k semi detached. I literally look down on it from my window and it looks tiny. I think to myself, I know houses are traditional for families but how can one extra bedroom, small garden and an extra 100 sq ft (excluding the stair case which is useless space) be worth more than double? I could buy the flat next door and have five bedrooms (convert 2nd living room) and still have change. Sneaky knock a hole in the wall (only joking, even drilling into concrete requires special drill bits). There’s a huge attic above we have access to 😂 or move the small kitchen/diner into the living room and have a third bedroom. I’m sure my neighbour/director would love that request along with all the plumbing 🤣

In seriousness though, if we stay in the flat indefinitely we can be mortgage free in about five years while buying that house would mean paying it off until we’re old. We could even send two kids to the private school around the corner or go rent a place by the sea in the summers as we do now whereas a tiny house we’ll be always counting the pennies. Working for the house rather than it working for us 🤔

Am I being naive as about to start a family? I know two flights of stairs will be annoying with a pram but then there’s no stairs within the flat between rooms. If someone offered me £400k to go up some stairs each day with pram for five years, I’d bite their hand off. My other half may disagree!

Two bedrooms and working from home half the time with two kids will get tight. My parents are 10-20 min drive across London and have a five bedroom ‘empty nest’ where we’ll spend a lot of time and they’re a year from retirement. They might sell, they might not. They want to be apart of it.

Could we hold on and avoid the enormous bill of buying a house? Will we have to take the plunge? If so, when should we do it?

I think it makes sense to stay where you are in your circumstances. Plenty of people all over the world raise families very happily in flats.

I do think two flights of stairs with a pram will be an issue, but as you say, certainly not a £400k issue. Is there somewhere on the ground floor you could leave the pram, or in the car if you have one? One fairly minor benefit of a house is that you can leave the pram in the hall. I don't think I could physically carry a pram with a baby in it up two flights of stairs.

I'm not sure how long a two bed flat will work if you have two kids, but that's not a question you need to answer today.

Also, more expensive properties tend to increase in value more quickly than less expensive properties. Though I'd quite happily live mortgage free in a flat rather than spending huge amounts of interest every month paying off a house mortgage. At the end of the house mortgage, that extra interest could easily negate any increase in the house's value.

Generally houses offer more autonomy - you're not worrying about neighbours as much, if someone annoying moves in next door it's not as bad as directly above or below with a shared staircase. Houses don't have any of the service charges etc. A second floor flat is fine until you have kids, then you'll be desperate for a ground floor with a driveway. Communal garden is worthless compared to your own outside space where you can freely go in and out of your back door, hang your washing, have kids running in and out in a paddling pool etc.

Flats are great for some people and obviously fine for families but the convenience of a house is worth so much especially if you have children.

Buy your parents house when it comes up on the market?

Honestly it sounds fine I used to live in a flat now im in a house I love my garden but never get to use it because of the sheer amount of drug smoking in my area makes my garden stinky and the lovely swearing music they play means my kids can't use it either because the LAST thing I want my child to repeat is im going to shoot your mother and fuck her head (he has sen he repeats a lot) so I miss my flat it was bigger too

With my first we lived in a 3rd floor walk up flat with a raised ground floor entrance. We had the YoYo stroller which weighs nothing and has a shoulder strap and a rucksack changing bag so hands were free for baby. And basically get all shopping delivered, which is easy if you’re in a city. Honestly it was fine!

We are raising our family in a flat. It's one of a pair, we each own the freehold of the opposite flat so no ground rent. No communal areas so no service charges. It's massive. And it's half the price of a 3bed terraced house on the same street.

I honestly would stay as you are. We are able to overpay pretty much up to the cap of what we can overpay each year, so will be mortgage free by about 40yo.

I sometimes browse houses, as it always feel like what I "should" aim for - and when I see how much I would have to give up (financially and space wise), I just think I'd be daft to move.

I think the house is more of an investment for your future, when you retire you will be able to downsize to the flat you are in now and have a lot of capital to invest to fund retirement, of course if you stay in your flat and invest what you save on a larger mortgage now that could also fund your future but if you are going to spend it on school fees and renting summer houses by the sea you probably won’t be able to. I would go for the house no question.

It sounds like a great plan to me. Just keep your investments up, don't spend all the money you save on mortgage!

If you are the only people with access to the attic it could be worth looking into an extension. Depending on the type of property a dormer, a mansard etc. You'd obviously need permission from the freeholder (even if you are share of freehold you'd need to do it with both hats off) maybe pay other/s money to take this space into your leasehold demise.

We're the same, we have a 750sq ft flat which was 2 bed but is now 3 bed. The children are 11 & 13 now and it is all they have ever known.

Here the mortgage will be paid off in 6 years (I'll be 41). But with a house we would be paying the same amount per month, but for another 30 or so years. It's a no brainer.

We live in a large flat, 3 bed, terrace etc. we would love a 4th bedroom or home office but we find it very hard to leave, we’d have to triple our mortgage and still the house wouldn’t be as nice as our flat! I also have a feeling we “should” buy a house but then we see these tiny Victorian houses with no storage space and I just wonder why!!

For background I brought my son up in a ground floor flat until he was 7. Then we uprooted and moved 70 miles to get a house. It wasn't worth it for us even though I love the garden. In your shoes though I would try to buy a 3 bedroom ground floor flat with a garden, as it sounds like you can afford one. Flats are good for convenience when you have a toddler/ baby because everything is to hand. But the only way you will get a pushchair up 2 flights of stairs is by bumping the baby step by step. And it was sad for me with a toddler in a flat, he used to be trying to get out all the time, I had to literally lock him in and one time we were walking through a graveyard and he ran down into a sunken area and said "his name's garden" it was so sad as he was clearly longing for a garden.

Not double the money's worth for us, but honestly access to that one extra bedroom and garden would have been the difference between DH and I having our one child and having none, because DH has WFH for about 5 years now. As it is, we have 4 bedrooms (one boxroom used as a home office) and none of it feels like wasted space (no dining room/utility, literally a lounge, kitchen, bathrooms/toilets and the bedrooms).

It sounds like you are happy with the flat, & being mortgage free sounds amazing!

I’d hang in & see how you go around the time your parents downsize - if you move and they may choose to help you then (if that is in their plans) timing could work out well

Being mortgage free young is not to be sniffed at and would allow you to give your DC a lot of opportunities

I moved from a £500k flat to £800 house in our area. The sq ft doubled but it's not a huge house and bedrooms fairly small. We had inheritance though, so we didn't increase our mortgage debt too much.

What I would say is that although our previous flat felt nice and quiet and private what we wanted when the kids came along was space from each other.

So the house is good because one of us can be working on the roof terrace and the other parent can be in the living room with kids. When lock down hit that was particularly helpful.

You don't have to decide now, for always.

It sounds like a lovely flat, ideal for a couple. Maybe ok for a baby IF you can cope with the oram situation. Personally I couldn't, but if I LOVED the flat & area I'd probably try to get by with a sling. But once they're walking etc, it's lovely to have a garden that they can just potter about in & not have to pack a bag to take tem into the communal garden (where you can't usually have slide/swing/sand etc

You could always move a little further out

I'm with you on this @Steth123 - We live in a large 2/3 bed light filled flat in SE London with 2 kids. We have a private portion of the garden but not direct access to it. I'm aften astonished when I see what houses cost in our area. A really pokey 2 bed house which is 300 sqft smaller than our flat with a tiny garden is being marketed at what we would expect to pay for ours today. We have considered what our next move will be if we run out of space and have decided it will be another (slightly bigger flat).

Forgot to say, just get a sling + lightweight pram and you'll be fine with the stairs. I've done it with two babies now and its not a big deal. People in my flat were totally ok with us leaving the buggy downstairs and we only took it down and brought it back up once everyday. The money you save living in the flat you could put to use to make your life easier in other ways -- like household help with cleaning and cooking and are thus able to spend more quality time with the kids after work.

We actually sold a house and bought a large 3 bed flat. It was less than half the price, in a better area and the square footage wasn't that much less. Especially in the London market flats can be very good value right now.

A lightweight pram and sling isn't fine with a baby trust me- for all those times you've gone out and filled the buggy with shopping and need to get it inside but can't because you're carrying a baby or don't want to leave the baby upstairs whilst you shuttle up and down three flights of stairs carrying bags. Or for the times the baby has been walked to sleep in the buggy and you want to wheel them inside and keep them asleep etc. I'm not saying it can't be done just that it is a hardship and you will find it very annoying!

When it's nice weather and the kids want to be outside you won't want to pack a bag or paraphernalia plus your keys to go downstairs to a communal garden, realise you've forgotten their drink, drag them back upstairs with you because you can't leave them alone in the garden to go back down again. It's akin to having a local park not a garden.

I’d look for a three bed ground floor flat in your shoes or a two bed that holds the potential to carve our a third bedroom. Best of both worlds, cheaper, a proper garden, bedrooms for kids and no stairs.

If you’re happy then it’s fine! For me I would always prefer a house because I like to have a garden I can open the doors to and walk in and out of, especially with kids. A balcony would have been horrific with my kids. I’d always have had to be with them once they could move, whereas even with a small garden you can just leave the door open and let them potter in and out. I would also be worried about noise from neighbours (though sounds ok in your case), service charges, and there’s normally less potential to change/ improve a flat. Not sure all are relevant in your case but that’s what is normally the case.

Oh and on the stairs, again others will have had different experiences but my kids were always falling asleep in the pushchair. Having a house meant I could just push the pushchair into the hallway and sneak past for a quiet cup of coffee- bliss! If I’d had to wake them up to get them up the stairs every time they would have been grouchy and miserable all afternoon! Carrying them up in the pushchair still asleep isn’t possible once they’re out of the baby seat in a travel system.

Also not all houses are equal, a 1960s bungalow is cheaper and much less desirable in my area compared to a Victorian red brick house or Cotswold cottage. Same space, parking and plot but the contrast in price is interesting. If you really do want to buy a house, look for something 60s or 70s

Agree about a balcony - I wouldn't live somewhere with a balcony with young children.

As you say, dealing with the inconvenience of getting toddlers and babies up the stairs is easily worth 400k. We raised our kids in a similar flat. It was fine and gave us a lot of financial freedom.

It sounds like you love the flat and the area, so I would stay where you are for the nursery years. A cheap mortgage is a godsend when budgeting for nursery fees.

It also sounds like you’re assuming a large inheritance from your parents, which will change your longer term thinking and priorities.