I spent a large part of my childhood living in flats. My first home was on the 25th floor of a building in Hong Kong. Since then, I’ve lived in apartments around the world. But when looking to buy a home in England, I gave them no consideration whatsoever. Flats can be large and grand, or small and convenient — but in this country at least, they have been a distant second to houses for years.
Today, with property prices rocketing upwards, some buyers — especially first-timers — may feel the need to rush and buy a flat or risk forever missing out. Yet the current boom does not extend to all homes equally: house prices are rising rapidly, but prices for flats are not. While lower price growth is welcome, the underperformance of flats relative to houses highlights some serious issues. If you’re planning to trade up to a house eventually, you might, in some circumstances, actually be better off not buying a flat at all, and saving and renting instead.
This is quite the turnround. Between 1997 and 2007, flats were the joint fastest-growing property type in England, rising, on average, 13 per cent per year. Between 2007 and 2017 — while overall growth was much lower — they were still the fastest-growing type of property, averaging 3 per cent per year.