Has anyone bought a central flat instead of a house in suburbs?

[temporu]

Everyone seems to want a house and tells us to buy a house. We love living centrally in London but appreciate the space of a house too. Has anyone here made the choice to buy a flat in central rather than a house for an equivalent price somewhere in the burbs?

I didn't really buy a central flat but bought a 2 bed flat in zone 3. However I did buy as central as I could, it's just that my budget didn't stretch to zone 1 in 2019! We don't have a car and we are raising our son in the flat so in a sense quite similar to many zone 1/2 flat dwellers, dh bikes everywhere.

I would look at the service charges sink fund and go for a share of freehold or a leasehold in a development where the residents have bought the freehold. I bought a 1930s flat where dh can be director of the residents management company and this has meant that a lot of the disadvantages of leasehold have been risk managed. There is still a service charge but many house owners have high renovation cost and roof/fence replacement costs too while the only major thing I did in the last 6 years was replace the boiler.

I wouldn't expect the flat value to increase in value but for me I bought mainly for stability of tenure and I have other financial priorities I.e. funding childcare and education and unexpectedly private medical care for dh so I don't have money to upgrade to a house anyway. And was also planning on one child for the same reasons, have no family support so have to finance it ourselves. So for me the flat was a forever home. Even when I did look at upgrading, it was only at other flats so a lateral move really though with such heavy financial commitments I really can't justify moving and it would be the same with or without home price rises.

Most flat owners do expect to upgrade to a house and also bought new build leaseholds so of course they are disappointed.

If you want to buy a central flat in summary

1. Make sure it is not problematic leasehold wise or share of freehold with sensible service charges; no cladding, preferably period
2. At least 2 bedrooms
3. If planning for children, think how many children and how many bedrooms they need in next 10 to 15 years (some people comfortable with kids sharing esp if rooms spacious). Also think about school catchments. Some central areas have better primary schools.
4. Make sure there is a place to store bikes and also storage (we have access to a loft and an unofficial communal bike shed which used to be an Anderson shelter)
5. Communal garden or v nearby park
6. If you like pets, make sure pets allowed.

@temporu

It doesn't really matter what "everyone" is suggesting and I expect you've been diligent with your finances.

If you prefer the buzz of being really central, go for it.

The 'burbs" can wait.

If you can stay for 10 to 15 years this should ensure a flat is the right choice for you. I love my area and I don't spend lots of money on commuting and I don't have high heating bills plus am in a better area than I would have been if I had opted for a house (would be a tiny house outside London paying £800 for both of us to commute to work).

The main advantage with a house is that they are usually freehold, so you have complete control. A flat will be leasehold, which means you never really own it, are beholden to a freeholder and managing agent, and are forced to pay whatever overinflated bills they send you for any work ‘needed’ to the building..

Also houses hold their value more and tend to be a better investment.

The ultimate decision is up to you
and what you prefer, but keep the above in mind when deciding.

Yes I did, exactly for the reason you give. I could have got more space/garden for my budget further out, but I chose smaller space for the benefit of being central. I just love being in the centre, the buzz of the city, convenience of being close to everything. I did purposely choose to be next to a big park to offset my lack of garden.

Lots of people do! I know someone who lived in a tiny Soho flat with four children -- they went to that little Soho primary with the playground on the roof. Someone DH used to be in a bookgroup with raised her kids in a flat just off Piccadilly Circus. We had our son living in a tiny flat in zone 2, and stayed there until we left London altogether. I couldn't handle the suburbs.

We did and loved it - only really sold up due to high service charges and post-Covid WFH more and just a change in lifestyle meant it no longer made sense to be paying them when we no longer had such a need to be close to the office and able to walk everywhere in under 30 minutes. The service charges will probably be your greatest consideration: period conversions in central which tend to have lower ones aren’t in great supply, and modern blocks with fire safety regs to meet and things like lifts to service can run into several thousand a year.

If you think you’d break even on that in terms of no commuting costs, no general house maintenance, and being more inclined to take advantage of all the free activities and events on your doorstep because they’re easy to get to, they may well not be such a big deal. If DH and I ever found ourselves having to be back in the office more than 1-2 days a week, we’d probably think about moving back to a central flat, as we’d easily pay upwards of £3,000 PA in travel from where we are now.

There are share of freehold flats. Many maisonettes don't have managing agents as it's 2 flats. Managing agents generally are more useful if it's 20 to 30 flats cos you need more active management. We are leaseholders but dh is a director of our residents management company and they make decisions together.

Many flats are managed by the residents. I mean the thing about flats is that if the roof or gutters need repair you can't delay it the way many people do. My mother in law's wall is falling down, her gutters are a nightmare and at some point her dining room ceiling will collapse because she is doing the tiling on her bathroom herself and not doing waterproofing. No funds for roof either. You can't do that with a flat, our fence blew off during a storm and it was replaced very promptly. If my mother in law had a fence it would never be replaced. It would be the issue for the next owner in 30 years time when we sell it after her passing.

Not london but a major city. I bought a flat mainly due to budget but wouldn't move to the suburbs now, I can walk to work, have great bus services, easy access to the airport, local shops and parks, a choice of gyms. I hardly have time to do my housework let alone gardening and it doesn't interest me at all.

Yes live garden free centrally - it’s amazing with primary aged and older kids, under 5s a garden helps for easy entertaining - messy play, slide, swing, kicking a football etc. Over 5s centre so much better for activities

Not worth living in London without a garden.

Yes we have a garden flat on a fabulous communal garden. We only have one DC so it's perfect for us - walk and tube everywhere, direct access to the gardens but someone else looks after them! Easy walking to great schools and all the rest. Feel so sorry for all our DC's friends who moved out to Zone 3 once they had a 2nd/3rd child and now spend their lives in their cars having to drive children everywhere.

I think it’s just too dirty and polluted. When you have little babies and children you want them to have fresh air and freedom. Small children in crowded spaces, especially nowadays when central london is jam packed and full of people swearing a lot and using their phones without ear buds, it’s horrible.

I never found that. We did specifically buy a flat across the road from a big park, though, which was used by everyone locally as a communal garden. Some of my nicest London summer memories are eating dinner in the park surrounded by other people doing the same thing, feeding babies, playing chess, sunbathing, practising tightrope walking between trees, doing yoga, playing baseball, doing exercise classes, in about fifty different languages.

We bought a flat in zone 2 (not sure how far our money would go anywhere else). I don’t regret it at all. It’s a 6 min journey into London Bridge and I can even walk home from work if I want to.

Our flat had a massive garden. Bigger than the garden of the house we are now buying.

Ours was also share of freehold. We paid for things on an ad hoc basis and the underlying lease was extended when we bought it as well. We lived there for 10 years.

I bought a flat in zone 4 as I bought alone with a tiny budget but absolutely if I could afford it I’d choose a more central flat over a house further out. As it stood my decision was a tiny flat to stay in London or leave the city completely for a house - for me there was no question. I too love the city buzz and find even my area a bit too suburban and quiet despite having a 10 min train into London Bridge

I’d 100 percent sell our large house in the suburbs for a central London flat. Go for it OP!

Not London but another UK city. Sold my family home in a leafy suburb and bought a beautiful Victorian apartment in town. Love it, I can walk everywhere and everything I want to do is on my doorstep.

There are lots of flats like this. The main reason why leasehold gets such a bad reputation was because flat owners are overwhelmingly first time buyers and in the past 10 years the help to buy scheme was only for new build developments. The developers used the service charges as a kind of income stream and also there was a problem with cladding and building standards. The help to buy scheme was attractive to first time buyers but ultimately they were taking out loans they couldn't afford and it also meant they overwhelmingly bought new build flats which had lots of issues and expensive service charges.

Yes, we bought a 2 bed 2 bath flat with a large balcony. These were non negotiable for us so we searched quite a bit to find it. We are between zones 2 & 3, in a residential area but still close to the tube, and with good schools and a sense of community. I am a city girl, I grew up in a city centre abroad, so I can’t imagine myself living outside of London.
we only have one car that my DH uses (I dont drive) and we can go to DCs activities with public transport very easily. Also out flat has increased in value just due to location, it was a new build so we haven’t done any improvements on it.
that being said, we have extortionate service charges which all the residents are fighting with the managing company for, and never get anywhere. And anything that the building needs is pretty much out of our control because the managing company handles the contractors. Also life in London is very expensive. But I would never move away.

We moved from a central London flat to the burbs when DD was 2, but my colleague went in the other direction - he and his wife sold their big Walthamstow house and moved to a little flat off Oxford Street and were blissfully happy. No kids or pets, though

We aren't in Bloomsbury or anything ... But yes, when the kids were gone we sold a small house out in Surrey and purchased a big flat in zone 2. We have underground parking for two cars, a nice communal garden and reasonable service charges. I love it and wouldn't live anywhere else.

I'd imagine most people in central London are in flats not houses. Perfectly normal choice. Most European cities ONLY have flats for what it's worth.

Good luck leaving the little ones roam in the park while working from home.