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 love living in central London and have recently purchased a 4 bed town house in Notting Hill. Perhaps that’s something you could consider? The house prices are very affordable right now.

Shouldn't they be in childcare anyway if you are working.

If you like it, stay. It doesn’t matter what other people like.

you wouldn’t have a child because that’s what “everyone” does, would you. You’d do it because you wanted to.

Depends what’s important to you. Both my husband and I lived as working adults in central London, in apartments…but once we decided to start a family, we knew we wanted to bring them up in a house with a garden, less built up than a city….we swung the opposite way and now live in the middle of nowhere, with no mains sewage, no gas, no pavements or street lights and live in a house with dogs, cats, land with chickens! Love it and the kids (now young adults!) lived a very idyllic life and loved it..lockdown was definitely more enjoyable than that of many of our friends confined in flats in London!

In another country, but used it live in very central flat. 10 minutes walk to work, 15 to a park. The building had lots of amenities including a swimming pool, sauna, playground and gym!
I loved it!
I guess if you don’t have to worry about school catchments and find a building that is well managed by the residents, it could work: Stay away from new builds with abusive ground rent and service charges!

Different country but we did exactly this. No amount of money is worth the time each member of the family would lose to commuting. Never regretted it. All our family members live in houses with gardens: I do feel a bit smug using our car once a month, restaurants and bars and cafes on our doorstep, everyone home by 5.45pm latest, 3 outdoor communal spaces for our building, cycling and walking everywhere, DC able to make last minute plans independently of us - while they're doing the gardening and window washing and worrying about bins and parking and sitting in traffic and doing the weekly shop and racing around to/from clubs in their cars factoring in traffic and eating dinner in the car or at 8.30pm. But they do have more space than we do. I'd like a guest room, for sure.

It's horses for courses, really. My parents love hearing the birds each morning, love not having to deal with people. They don't mind house-related chores. I'd rather sit on MN than hoover the stairs and weed the garden!