Quote:
Originally Posted by marothisu
^ Yes. Someone with some $$ usually comes in and buys the property, renovates and makes it into SFH for their own family. It's kind of surprising it happens so much and it's not your regular type of process. Curious if people do this because say a 2 flat sometimes is cheaper even with a $100K renovation ..or..?
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I’ve looked at buying certain 2-bedroom apartments in rowhouses, where the bottom two floors are one apartment and the upper two are another (so basically 2-flats), with the express idea of having the option to expand later when I am able and have the need. And yes it’s cheaper. Looking at comps it’s really a 2+2=5 situtation (or at least 2+2+.5=5, accounting for the building work).
But like I said, certain local councils in London are more or less amenable to this.
To answer another question, I wasn’t implying that individual families will do the deconversion. Certainly not renters. But owners certainly might. New Yorkers in larger buildings have been buying the apartment next door, above or below in order to combine them into a larger apartment since time immemorial.
But as Khantilever said, it doesn’t matter. The specific people are fungible. The point is that building has space for 4 bedrooms, whether they’re split between two separate homes or not, and will be occupied by people who require 4 bedrooms. Maybe it’s another pair of 20-something roommates, maybe it’s some 50-year-old couple’s teenage kids. Who cares. De-converting into a SFH doesn’t necessarily mean housing is available for fewer people, and certainly doesn’t result in a 1:2 reduction across the board.
If you want to make more housing available, then build bigger buildings with more square footage, in which more people can live.
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