Help! We are buying our first home

[Charliechoco]

Me and my partner have worked our asses off to finally afford a deposit on a home and we have found the perfect flat, albeit some concerns.

It is a basement level flat in West Norwood, SE London, 2 beds, private garden and separate kitchen/ living room for £470k.

The kitchen is very bright, but the bedrooms have small windows which might be depressing to live in throughout winter. We are also concerned about damping/ flooding etc.

I would love to hear people's thoughts on basement level flats - are they easy to rent out? Easy to sell/ as desirable? Have you had any unforeseen problems?

I think the second one looks much better, and it’s the same size if the floor plans are correct (71sqm). Having the second bathroom is helpful and the rooms themselves look much nicer and brighter. There’s a difference to have ground floor and basement flats feel, and the layout for the basement is like a tunnel and I think would feel narrow and gloomy. It looks brighter because of all the ceiling lights.

We rented a basement flat in Islington at one point and it was full of large spiders. I wouldn't want to live in one again.

Please please be very cautious with a 90-year lease, that alone would be a massive red flag to me.

Apologies to sounds naive, why would 90 year leasehold matter when you have share of freehold?

It matters because when you buy a share of freehold you are both part freeholder and leaseholder so you would still need to extend the lease but would effectively be buying it from yourself and the other freeholders. It’s likely that there would be no cost other than the legal costs to get it set up but your solicitor would need to check that this is the case.
Most share of freeholds have a very long lease of 900+ years, I would want to investigate why this one is so low - eg are there problems with the other freeholders who may not cooperate to get it extended?

i have a share of the freebhold
we have just extended
it was so straightforward 🤷‍♀️

No you don`t, and they have already knocked 25k off, why not look for more sensibly priced property while they get realistic?

Buying in this market will make it difficult to sell and break even IMO, you will be massively overpaying, and do you want a home or somewhere to rent out, that is two completely different scenarios.

Yes very good points! We do want a home for at least 5 years.

I think we will keep looking for the perfect property, I don't think we would want to pay more then 450 (which they rejected), the flat was bought for 430 is 2021.

Also VERY interesting RE leasehold/ share of freehold arrangement. I did ask the estate agent about this, and he worded it in a very different way. Good to know, Thankyou for telling me.

The lease would be the issue for me
A lot of lenders will want around 80/85 years remaining on a lease regardless of whether you have share of the freehold so whilst it would be OK now when you come to sell it will be an issue unless you extend
It seems expensive given the short lease

430 in 2021 means well South of 400k now IMO, rates have just moved up at the fastest pace in history, that doesn`t happen and then things just tick along as before, are they getting anyone else offering?