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?

Your flat sounds great! Please sell it to me when you want to move!

I grew up in a flat, have raised one child in a flat and now live in a 2 bed flat with a young dc. I think there are a lot of advantages to apartment living and a lot of old houses often feel cramped, especially in London where we are.

I've never had any private garden or balcony in any of our flats and growing up that was fine. All the flats we lived in were part of larger developments rather than converted houses, so they had communal play spaces and I would play there with siblings and other families. But obviously we couldn't have any of our own play equipment there like trampolines or a play house.

The flats I've lived in have always had lifts. My DD naps in her buggy so having a lift is a dealbreaker for me if we are in a flat. We always used very lightweight buggies but they aren't light if you have a sleeping baby in them! We usually wheel her into the flat and she sleeps in the hall.

We've decided we'll be moving to a house later this year though as we have another baby on the way, but we're fortunate in having a windfall which allows us to do it without many financial sacrifices or having to leave this part of London. I think if it meant cutting back on other luxuries or moving out to the suburbs then I'd be happier living in a (bigger) flat. The main things that I don't like about flats are the service charges (which I guess you don't get with a converted flat like in the OP, but then you also don't have a lift/large communal play space), often not being able to extend/change layout, general privacy, and I think the overall sense of ownership - I dislike being under the leasehold system. For us it's also a better financial investment, as I think a house will increase in value more than a flat (and we do plan to downsize later in life to release that value).

We lived in a rented flat when ds was born. The problem was that either you were in or you took buggy and went out. Communal garden wasn't really good. We bought a three bedroom house with garden and it was much easier to entertain dc. Dc could play in the garden while I stayed inside and kept eye of them. Garden also was safe so I didn't need to be present all the time. Paddling pools and sand boxes kept dc busy.

YANBU I had friends who were adamant they couldn't live in a flat as first time buyers and ended up with teeny tiny houses in worse areas than my flat. People in the UK seem to be obsessed with living in houses if you have kids but worldwide a lot of people manage just fine in flats and you adapt to what you know.

I think you adjust to what you've got, and your flat does sound lovely! Especially given the price differential.

I did find (we had a house with side access to garden) that it was great if baby fell asleep out in the pram to then park it in the hall or on the patio, be able to make a cup of tea and have a sit down with a book until DD woke up, which wouldn't be feasible in a 2nd floor flat scenario. We did this until DD turned 3yo and so it would have affected a number of years. I'd have physically struggled to carry a baby in a sling plus shopping up two flights of stairs but you might be younger and fitter than me!

We also found having a garden DD could just trot out into when she wanted a big help, and, when we moved, turned down the house with the communal garden, because we couldn't guarantee it being secure. I can also imagine it being a right pain heaving DD and some play things downstairs to the garden, only for someone to need the loo and have to go all the way back up again.

Millions of people across the world grow up in flats. It’s fine. Much better than living in a newbuild detached with a tiny garden, front garden that’s a parking lit and nothing to easily walk to.

It sounds like you could make your flat work, especially if you only have one child. Your plate may choose to help you out if/when they downsize. I would carry on as you are for now. Having good neighbours cannot be over rated. If you are close to a park even better.

@orinocosfavoritecake

Millions of people across the world grow up in flats. It’s fine. Much better than living in a newbuild detached with a tiny garden, front garden that’s a parking lit and nothing to easily walk to.

It's not one or the other. You think they're not putting flats, sorry, "executive apartments" on new build estates? I can see 4, and 2 coachhouses above garages, right now. From my tiny wonderfully low-maintenance newbuild garden where DS is currently riding around on his toy tractor.

I think flat sounds great. We finally moved to house after living in a large 3 bed with 2 kids for 10 years. We needed the space and wanted a better garden. But it's really not essential and loads of families manage fine in flats

And we have moved to a lovely 70s house btw. Have lived in Victorian houses before and this is so much better!

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?
Because those things are valuable – you’re making it sound like “just a little extra, hardly a thing” then go on to list loads! Maybe it’s not worth £400k worth to you, but what you’ve listed means:
• Bedrooms - a family with 2 children can live there without sharing, or a single-child family can have a spare room/WFH space on top of their bedrooms (spare room is lovely with a baby, so at least someone sleeps!)
• (Plus presumably loft space to convert, so room to grow?)
• Private garden vs your communal garden - I’m in the garden with DD right now marvelling at what a nice thing it is, like an extra room with today’s weather! I’m pottering and so’s she, no “falling off the balcony” worry or “noisy neighbour in the communal space” annoyance
• 100sq ft extra on top of everything else – so roomier rooms altogether, which translates to more storage space, bigger sofa, kitchen-diner, etc
• Plus private stairs vs your communal ones – what you’re dismissing as useless space is the holy grail, storage! Under stairs storage is brilliant. And storage storage storage is brilliant once kids come along. Plus once you’re in your front door, you’re home – no more neighbours

But the choice isn’t between your two-bed flat and this unaffordable three-bed house – other houses are available, it’s just a case of willingness and ability to relocate, surely?

We live in a cheap and cheerful norther city and there is no way I would live in a flat when you can buy four bed semi with big garden for £400k. Three beds are half of that in a good area. Not moving to south anytime soon.

Would your apartment neighbours mind if you left a buggy in the hallway? If a baby was asleep could you leave it in the hallway and leave your door open in your flat? You could have a baby monitor facing the buggy.

It will be very hard with a pram as yes you can take the seat or carrycot off and take it up separate from the base but they weigh a tonne, plus you have your changing bag. Then you have to leave the baby upstairs to go and get the base wheels. Once they are too big for that which is only 4-6 months, then you are in trouble as you will have to leave them in a play pen or something, as a seat is too risky. I guarantee they will cry the whole time making you under pressure. Plus you'll never get them up two fights still asleep if they've dozed off. I have a town house with two flights of stairs ( nightmare with babies) but I imagine the flat ones are double flights so more like 4 house stairs.

People hate prams left in communal spaces and crying.

Usually you can't extend into the loft as you don't own it. You can use it but even so the hatches are usually only for maintenance if you read your lease.

Once your baby is toddling age 1 ish you will want to be able to access the garden in the warmer months and I guarantee you won't have the wipes, your tea/coffee the right hat, the suncream or which ever thing they need. Lugging all this stuff up and down plus a child won't work. My cousin has a place like this and they only use the garden at relatives, so if you are close with your parents then that would be the only solution. So it may work if you intend to work full time after may leave as you / DH won't be home with the baby as much.

I’d always choose a freehold house with garden over a flat every day.

Oh I was in a lovely big flat with one child. Massive private garden too. But it had no parking. And then I had another baby… skill manageable enough but annoying with the pram. Then I had another baby and could not cope with the stairs, it was unbelievably awful, no room to store the pram, I had to leave it in the car which was parked far away, had to carry both babies to it, as they couldn’t walk and i couldn’t leave them home alone while I walked to get the pram, it was a logistical nightmare for a while.

The house we are in now isn’t huge but we find we don’t use the space anyway, we all stay in the back room which is smaller than our flag front room!

Ah also, you go out for a walk around nap time, baby falls asleep in pram. What do you do? Carry them up and take the risk? (I know this sounds ridiculous but sometimes the transfer is very stressful!)

With my house i used to go down the side to the back door and sit in the garden with babies sleeping in the pram and have a cup of tea. No transfer at all.

400k is a LOT though. We have a house in London but moved overseas just at the end of the buggy years. Most places here are flats. We have a lovely big flat, super spacious, big terrace. Our London house is properly poky in comparison. Yes it has stairs. Really the baby sleeping in the buggy years are short & I'm not sure having to go upstairs for wipes is worth 400k. I'm going to miss this flat badly when we leave; it's so well designed for family living.

The leasehold/freehold thing is potentially an issue but if the freeholders are good then great. I'd really consider a flat next time.

(Our babies were mostly in the sling for the first year as well and then we were back at work, so it would have only been an issue at the weekends. If one of you is a SAHP it might be more annoying)

Have your first baby and then see how you feel. You don’t have to decide now.

Wrote a long reply then got chatting to the kids and lost it.

Basically - we were in similar position. Stayed out for baby number 1, but the logistics of up and down stairs with two children and pushchair / pram (even with mostly using sling) and slow walking toddlers dawdling up the stairs at end of long day, inability to just let them go in and out the garden on a sunny day, going outside to anywhere but the balcony being basically packing up to leave the house - it was just too inconvenient with two young children. Having a garden out the back - or at least a private enclosed safe space - is such a boon with young kids.

I’d stay put for child 1, and move after that when you know how you’re likely to feel - will be easier to understand the upsides of the house then, and perhaps you’ll mind and perhaps you won’t.

We couldn’t have afforded a house where we owned a flat. We moved area entirely. (Not a change of work etc - just further out of London). I hugely missed the old location as I loved it, but this place works much better for us as a family.

I think it would have been sensible to move pre-kids - it’s easier to get a mortgage if you don’t have to account for childcare fees to the bank - and it would have been nice to get to know the place as a couple before the whirlwind of kids. But we loved the previous place and wanted to stay as long as possible.