House in Brockley

[ZippyFish]

considering to make an offer for this house but skeptical as it has been on the market for a year understand the sale fell through. But any idea what could be the red flags to look out for?
www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/65846966/

Hi OP - do you know the area / road? I live around here. It’s a nice flat but personally I’d never buy on this road as it’s busy and I believe buses go down. So that’s just one to consider if / when reselling that your potential pool of buyers could be smaller.

It’s leasehold - who’s the freeholder? 96 years left which they say has been recently extended but I think anything below 90 years for a lease can cause issues when selling…

It also says cost effective lease charges - but what are they as the rent and SC are listed at £0? Is there not a communal pot for if repairs are needed?

You have access to the loft but don’t actually own it, so could never extend to make more space (and it seems pretty small).

Listing also gives two different council tax numbers…

Its a nice flat but it just seems a little small and not much room for growth.

The second bedroom is really small. It's really a 1.5 bed flat. Is it priced accordingly for flats in that post code?

Agree with pp that a recently extended lease which is still only 96 years sounds iffy.

It has an excellent Street View. Made me laugh anyway.

It is definitely a busy road and used as a cut through to Lewisham by a lot of people. There's a premium on house prices round there as you can be in catchment for Prendergast Hilly Fields, but not sure if that carries through to flats.

Thanks all, this is helpful.

Also, it may have been at a higher price for a long time - I can't tell from the listing. That can give the impression that it's not a good flat when in fact it was just overpriced

Yes that makes sense looks like houses are quite overpriced making me confused how much lower can you really go while making an offer! Was looking at few properties and literally prices are back to 2015 level!

You can download Property Log extension of Google Chrome. I have it and it shows that this flat was listed in October 2023 at 400k. It says that the price was increased in January to 425k. It looks as if they have had some sort of problems with selling. In general, London flats haven't increased nominally so have gone down in real terms considerably over several years. I don't know about this specific area though.

Flats usually have a covenant in the lease that floors should be carpeted. I wonder if there has been a breach of the lease here, which could possibly explain why the earlier sale fell through. Hard wooden floors can be very noisy for the flat below, so ask about that if you are interested.

The bus that goes down that road is the P4, which is a single decker and not that frequent. It may now be electric, in which case it will be far quieter than buses used to be.

Thanks

Thanks for pointing this out, will check with them. But I am not going ahead with this and still looking for other properties in the area.