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Straight to rung 2

ended 02. February 2026

One broker has said improving affordability and lender innovation are seeing more and more of his clients borrow more to buy larger properties, avoiding troublesome leasehold flats on the property ladder. Are you seeing this? If you are, and if it continues, could it apply downward pressure on the value of leasehold flats? Any thoughts, ASAP please.

3 responses from the Newspage community

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Justin Moy
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
It's clear that the more savvy First Time Buyers are looking beyond traditional starter homes (flats) and setting their sights on houses to benefit from improved affordability, and to bypass expensive stamp duty and other moving costs associated with repeated buying and selling - gone are the days of moving every 2 or 3 years to climb the property ladder. With significantly fewer solo FTBs and couples, even on minimum wage, now able to borrow over £250k, the market is starting to see a significant shift in buying habits.
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JEAN PIERRE KALEBIC
Senior Mortgage Advisor at OnlineMortgageAdvisor.co.uk
It's a great time to be a mortgage broker! Lenders are being encouraged to loosen their lending rules and we are seeing an increase in the amount borrowers can borrow which means many people are able to buy properties that may have been completely out of reach just a few months ago.
But this will benefit the whole of the market. Although some people might now be able to afford to buy a freehold house instead of a leasehold flat, there will now be many more new first time buyers coming to the market who may not have been able to afford to get on the property ladder previously.
A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say!
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Kundan Bhaduri
Entrepreneur, Investor and Landlord at The Kushman Group
Buyers are stretching themselves to the absolute limit to secure a freehold house not because they are greedy for space, but because they are terrified of becoming trapped in a leasehold nightmare where they have no control over their costs. They have done the maths on the transactional friction of moving i.e. Stamp Duty, legal fees, estate agent commissions, and realised that moving every three years is a mug's game in a high-tax economy. This shift spells disaster for the valuation of city centre flats, which are rapidly becoming the sub-prime assets of the UK housing market.

We on the other hand are buying a lot of these flats but only if we can buy the entire building with freehold included so we keep control of the entire asset portfolio.