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Let your next career move come to you.

Living in a flat past a certain age is still perfectly acceptable?

Mother keeps dropping hints that I should now be looking to live in a small terrace house at my age as opposed to living perpetually in flats . Is this poor form to want to live in a flat in my chosen area as opposed to a terrace in an area I’m not keen on? She thinks flats are for students or under 30s

Even my mother has no issue with people of a certain age living in flats.  If you spend a fair bit of time away from home then a flat makes perfect sense as it's more secure than leaving an empty house sitting there.

Also why would anyone spend a fortune on a three bed house in somewhere like Wimbledon when for less you can have a nicer house in the genuine countryside.

Visited friends on the continent recently, who have a large apartment. 2,000 sq ft goes a lot further in a properly laid out apartment than it does in a pokey Victorian terrace.  No wasted space for staircases, landings etc. And having everything on a single floor is something I could easily get used to.

All washed up, Im having third viewings today on two flats, both of which are period conversions. The first one has just been done by a property fund is imacculate, 3 bed 2 bath split level, with an open plan kitchen /living room,  all mod cons, and its own demised garden. I really want some outside space, but am not a fan of open plan kitchen/living rooms It is 900 square feet. Despite it being in a beautiful old former mansion the developers have given it a super modern new build finish which I am not keen on, as nice as it looks.

The other is a former georgian in a better location/road mansion consisting of four flats, and this one has the whole of the top floor, and is immaculate, shaker kitchen/diner, double oven, 3 beds , 2 baths, seperate lounge semi split level and is ready to move in. It retains all the original features, and looks though it has never been lived in. It does have a beautiful communal well kept large garden but in reality does one have a barbecue with friends, and have them trapsing up and down. It is 1100 square foot.

Mother was showing me these old workers cottages , with a ramshackle layout of between 600 and 900 square feet. They felt claustrophobic , like the walls were closing in.

 

Hoolie I don't particularly , it is nice living in a house with own front door etc, but not at the expense of living in a rabbit hutch in an area you are not keen on.

Both these flats are spacious with the old perios conversion very  much so, and its finish is more of its age, high ceilings, big heavy internal doors, sash windows, plantation shutters etc, but it has no bloody garden!

And the "new" build conversion has its own front door but I cannot get my head around the open plan kitchen living space, especially as you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the living area, which is pokey.

Glad to see you've been looking so long that you'll finally buy as the market goes back up and people start getting gazumped again.

In my house you come into the kitchen from outside then have to pass through it to get to any other part of the house and I like that.

Your mother is weird- there are lots of lovely flats and lots of crap houses - there is nothing inherently better about a house - and if you don't have kids you are better off spending your property dollar on quality than lots of bedrooms...

Your mother is weird- there are lots of lovely flats and lots of crap houses - there is nothing inherently better about a house - and if you don't have kids you are better off spending your property dollar on quality than lots of bedrooms...

sails the new build conversion  has had 75k knocked off, and the older top floor has had 100 k knocked off, all property where I am looking is being reduced, even those that cost several million. Who told you the market is now climbing again..

The e-mail I got last week confirming that a transaction is now back on at a higher price and the fact that I had four new deals all around the £2m mark come in in 24 hours.  The apparent stability has unleashed the beast.

Guy very true, it is just that 2 bed 2 bath flats with direct outside space are very rare where I am looking, unless you want a new build in a huge block of thirty or so.

Sails the market is not up, Simon Cowell recently spaffed £15MM on a mansion in my neck of the woods having secured £2MM of the asking price. All the Agents tell me they have never known such a poor market, and vendors are being realistic and taking aggresive offers especially if they bought ten years plus ago, in my price range they have still doubled their money

Go for a flat in a large block.  For years I lived in a block of five flats and ended up organising everything but have now moved to a block of 50 flats which has a thoroughly organised residents association, etc. so I can put my feet up and let someone else deal with managing agents and the like.

Ebit just saying what I see and what I read in the property press.  Clearly I bow to your superior knowledge as what would I know dealing with it six days a week most weeks.

Watching sailaw and ebitda converse about property is mind blowing. Is it a Turing test? Which one is a bot? Am I the bot?

sailaw - say potato if you're human 

. "I really want some outside space, but am not a fan of open plan kitchen/living rooms It is 900 square feet"

900 square feet seems small for a 3 bed 2 bath flat - unless you actually need 3 beds I would look for somewhere with bigger and if necessary fewer rooms.

Also a freehold flat is well worth hunting down. Not leasehold medieval auntery.

Ebit, do you think Mother just wants you to bring a nice girl over for dinner?

IMO don't get open plan living and kitchen. It's one of the things that bugs me about my flat. A little separation is nice. Also, period features every time. They won't date in the way that a fancy new build will as it gets a little lived in and worn.

friend in London has a one bed Victorian flat off Kilburn high road that cost half a million pounds

it is nice inside but the common corridor is like the inside of someone's house, all weird and narrow and carpeted

it blows my mind

half a million pounds

I know this isn't even pricey for London

Meh, I agree, whilst it is an old period victorian mansion, the finish is all shiny, glass, steel, white making it look like a new build. Meanwhile the Agent has just emailed me to say the service charge is 2k per flat and there are 6 plus two studios. That is insane, the freeholder getting 16k PA, and only having to pay tiny costs in the upkeep of the communal area, and the front lawn being mowed once a week, what a piss take.

Have a look at the service charge legislation as the freeholder can't make a profit and keep the cash.  Suspect that those fancy outside lights and bits are left on 24/7 and they're building up a sinking fund because there's some fancy roof membrane that has to be replaced every ten years.

Wow, she'd have her mind blown by the living conditions of a lot of people on the continent. 

This. My in laws are the only people I know round here who live in a house. And I don't know anyone under 30.

King no it isn't the Agent made a mistake and emailed me to say its 2k, what on earth they do with it I don't know. Whilst they will take 50k off I suspect as the PE owners are keen to sell ASAP, it is just too much of a bridge to close , what with the open plan thing going on, and it is only 10 feet wide, and the finish is a bit bland and new

Chimp don't you live in Sydney, where prices are completely mental

King that's a pretty normal agent mistake and one of the reasons we should licence them and make them do some kind of qualification.

I don't think Ebit's ideal flat actually exists given how long he's been looking.  Just build something.

Sails , it does, it is 2 bed, 2 bath period property, ideally with direct access to garden, or demised garden, and preferably not open plan. The one king posted her from hamptons fits the bill save it has open plan. They do exist but in my neck of the woods are very rare.

The other one is perfect, better road, better building, seperate kitchen diner/lounge , but has a communal garden

As an old hand agent told me in the area I am looking most of the big houses were not converted in to flats unlike  other areas in swest london.

And where I am going to find the money/land to build in south west london.

Google Maps and scouting the local area as I found two potential sites round Balham just walking to and from friends' houses.  Someone else spotted one of them and got it first but as far as I know the other is still there.  Building is cheaper than buying existing and plenty of self-build mortgages out there.

er, Ebit, I have a 950 sq ft conversion of a mansion house in your neck of the woods. Photos being taken in 10 mins time but if you want to PM me, off market would be delightful. 

Must admit I don't like these 1200 sq ft south west london dolls houses but there's no denying they are (were) good investments. I shunned one in Earlsfield many years ago in favour of a flat elsewhere and it definitely cost me some equity.

This is the correct answer:

"Watching sailaw and ebitda converse about property is mind blowing. Is it a Turing test? Which one is a bot? Am I the bot?"

I don't understand what the issue is here.  If you want to live in LDN / Greater LDN the chances are you are going to be in a flat unless you have mega dolla or are prepared to live somewhere not so nice.

I work away a lot.  I love the 'lock and leave' element of having a flat.

Ebitda - you live in Wimbledon?  I was in the Rose and Crown in Wimbledon Village on Friday and my friends were telling me a lot of working professionals in the Village are mortgaged up to the eye-balls and have very little disposable income.  They also said the market is very flat.

They can't be that balls deep in mortgage. You can normally only get 4.5 times your base salary with a bit more for your bonus. I am sure they don't have much disposable though after 3 sets of school fees and a Q7 lease that is.

Clapham, yeah I think that is very true, the development posted on here are asking 450k for a tiny 1 bed, I have no idea who is buying these, or 750 plus for a two bed, oh wait know one is, hence some pretty aggresive price reductions. The other ones they sold under that government gurantee scheme.

A few old hands who have been in the business 40 plus years in the area, reckon that 90% of those living in those £2MM-5MM houses bought ten plus years ago could never afford to buy them now. I am fairly lucky in that I have bought and sold two 1 bed conversion flats and luckily did rater well, so have decent but not spectacular deposit

My m7 Dave lived a few streets away from Wimbledon Common for a bit.  With his mrs.  Fairly basic one bedder that cost a fortune to rent.  Best bit was during a party there when their very own set of Wombles appeared from the soil of the aspidistra to eat the dropped pringle crumbs.*

 

*I say wombles, but outside of wimbledon the are known as rats.  TBF they were deffo making good use of the things that they found.  And that Tom and Jerry trope of all the women standing on stools and screaming is deffo not a trope.

It's like all the £750K houses springing up in the country where I can't believe there are hundreds of households with combined incomes of £125k looking for three bedroom houses.

I think that affordability thing is true anywhere premium tbh. Which is why round my way the boomers overprice their 4500 sq ft of dated shite by half a lion and they just sit on the market for years. It's their second pension rather than just another investment to a properly rich person.

Your mother is prejudiced. Is she from a small town?

London flats are over-priced, but it is better than living in a terraced house, where, a few streets away, is a sink estate, and at night, the gangs prowl the terraced housed street stabbing each other in postcode wars.

In Paris or Berlin, and many other European cities, almost everyone lives in flats. It's a much better lifestyle. Close to a Metro or U-Bahn station; close to the bars, shops, bakery, butcher (those last two, though, are rare in Britain)

You don't have to wheel out the bins, do the gardening, the windows on the outside, the heating is communal, parcels can be left with the porter/concierge/gardien when you're out, and you can live in relative anonymity and privacy. You won't have boundary disputes with chavvy, horrible, suburban neighbours, and there's less chance of having neighbours with noisy brats (unless you live in a bad area).

sec, she is from London, but she ocasionally reminds me ' me and  your father bought our first HOUSE before we got married lol. I agree I would rather live in a spacious period , immaculate flat of 1100 square feet in a nice area/road, as opposed to a former workers cottage/terrace house of 600-800 square feet. I saw one of these houses which was 600 square feet, it was tragically tiny, and had a bizarre layout . Would rive me mad.

@ all washed up 4500 square feet is of near mansion proportions,  absouletely huge,little wonder in better times they can be worth 500k more by sitting on them for a few years..

My mates and my brother in London have lived all over the place in a variety of different places (all rented). Terraced or semis in all parts of SW London, private flats (terraced house conversion) in Brixton and West Hampstead, studio somewhere north.

From my perspective, by far the most attractive of those options was a purpose-built development with a concierge on the river near Wandsworth Town. Nothing by way of character obviously but very convenient (in all senses) and well-designed.

Noisy neighbours would be my main concern in a flat. That said, the new purpose-built flat buildings tend to have excellent sound insulation. A mate lived in one in Cardiff and said you couldn’t hear a thing from above, below or next door. Certainly a lot less noise than an older semi-detached house.

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