Owning your own home

Has anyone converted a garage into a habitable space? Strongly considering turning our 10 x 3 m garage into a studio flat (with an additional 3 x 3 outdoor area), either for AirBnB or longer let. Share you experiences - positive or otherwise!

Rising house prices is not just an issue in London, it is a global phenomenon. Many people have moved to larger cities and construction has not kept up.

Before the brexit vote net migration to London was on average 100k people per year for 10 years (roughly). Unless you start building tower blocks with lots of flats (which people do not want to live in) it will create pressure.

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/43pqkm/london-rental-opportunity-of-the-week-a-pound750-camp-bed-in-penge

Not sure where you're living, but there are plenty of tower blocks going up in London, it's just they are called luxury apartments..

Ha. Obviously that was coming. That is pretty much the opposite end of the scale of what I'm envisioning.

Thinking about it now, I'm not sure what my question was. So what about:
How much did you spend to convert?
What do the council need to know (if anything; I think this will fall under Permitted Dev Rights)?
If it ends up as a separate address (unlikely), what does that mean in terms of Council Tax?

My gut feeling is that most people would say they wouldn't bring up a child or try to start a family living in a block.

I hear "you can't raise a child in a flat" all the time. Obviously it's total middle class bullshit, but it's a common opinion.

generally from people who grew up outside of big cities.
People can and do raise children in flats/tower blocks all the time.
as @Stonehedge says the prejudice generally comes from those who feel their progeny need a garden..

You can, IF there's a decent park and decent outdoor space.

I'm currently of that view, to an extent. I did grow up outside of a big city so I'm used to a garden, plenty of space, etc.

The other side is that if I had a child in my flat I feel it would be pretty inconsiderate for my neighbours below me. I've lived in flats where there have been kids running around upstairs and screaming during the night and it's pretty annoying. Putting that on someone seems a bit selfish.

. I've lived in flats where there have been kids running around
upstairs and screaming during the night and it's pretty annoying.
Putting that on someone seems a bit selfish.

Sounds like a problem with the building and not the family (or you).

True. But a lot of flats in London are a bit shit like this.

You're clearly a country boy, I was brought up in central London in cramped private rentals then council housing, last place was a tower block in Westminster... It was great...

yeah it can be annoying, but you/we/they are living in a flat and it come with the territory. You try and be considerate as possible, but babies/toddlers/kids (shrug) what else can you do.

I've only ever lived in a flat, so don't see what the fuss is about having a garden, having to go upstairs to take a piss.

Houses are great...

Although our house is like a flat...

yeah I might be buying one soon, so I'll let you know how I get on if I do

You can only understand after you have it.

Just like fixed gear bikes

The whole ‘immigrants cause rising house prices’ argument is just reheated UKIP bollocks, I am afraid.

UK house prices are driven by the massive influx of capital into the asset class, leveraged with cheap credit. Add into that a bit of top end demand for money laundering and safety deposit purposes and you have an affordability crisis. There are countries all over the world with high levels of immigration that don’t have our house price crisis (ie Germany), just as there are areas of the U.K. with low immigration but high house prices (ie Edinburgh).

I grew up with a garden and then a field out the back of that which I spent many hours in. No immediate outside space when you're a kid just seems a bit shit when I think of my youth (although I guess that's more of a general London problem).

We had football pitches, a basketball court, a playground, etc on our estate... It was fucking ace, I was never at home... We moved to the fringes of a rival estate when I was twelve, I didn't ever dare walk through it in case I got the shit kicked out of me... This was in the late 70s/early 80s, nothing changes...

As a generalisation, houses converted into flats are shit for noise transfer. Purpose built flats in big blocks are pretty good, floors are solid concrete.

i was raised in a cave. it was shit.

I was going to agree with you saying it's more of a cultural thing. Look at Berlin, Paris, NY, Barcelona they all manage to bring up kids in apartments.

But then I wondered if its not more about the availability / achievability of a house or conversion with a garden. For eg a young Spainish guy I worked with years ago was adament about having a garden for his houseshare. They were all young on low incomes, but his point was London was the only big city where you can have outdoor space and not be a million miles away (or spending a fortune). Thinking about NYC - where would you have to move to to get a garden? Queens? Towards Coney Island?

Sounds like a problem with the building and not the family (or you).

You'd think, but the minimum standard is woefully inadequate.

(or rather, its implementation in the 2006 new build I had).

A lot of the brownstones have gardens and some of the bling apartments have amazing gardens in the sky but $$$