Lets get straight in by saying I am not talking cladding issues, nor wanting to talk about moving to cheaper areas (I've done threads about affordability before and been told to move to Birmingham).
So I have been looking for a flat - I need to stay in this area to be relatively close to family and it's a wealthy area (Surrey) so freehold not affordable. Now you can look at "previous sale" values on Rightmove you can see that most flats have not increased in price or actually decreased since covid. So for example, a new build flat in show house condition sold in 2021 for £270k is now being offered at £275k, so with costs the vendors will have lost quite a bit. Maybe 20 other flats I can see listed, again this across the market so 1930s conversions to 2020s low rise 2 bed 2 bath apartments, bought for £300k, selling for £280k- just some examples to illustrate my point.
Initially I thought this was limited to landlords selling off stock in response to the new rental laws coming in soon, but the ones I am referring to are all being sold by a vendor - I always ask "is it tenanted" and the answer is always no.
Bearing in mind we have to have flats as housing stock, how might this pan out - so looking for opinions - will this trend continue? If I buy one of these flats at a loss to the vendor, maybe that seems great for me, but will I be in exactly the same position in 5 years? Is the issue in flats more marked than in houses (as they don't tend to change hands so much)?