Hi guys,
I want your opinion on following topic :
As a single man, would you rather buy an old house, in a noisy located area and requiring lots of renovations works, or buy a new 4 rooms apartment ?
Here is the background: I am 37 years old, no girlfriend no kids (would like to have), living since 2008 in the second apartment of an old small family house inherited by my aunt and my father in the early 2000’s. The house was previously owned by an old aunt born in the early 1900’s and who passed away at almost 100 years after living there her whole life. I knew her until beeing a teenager.
The house has a garden and is located in a noisy area, next to an important street with lots of traffic and plane noise, the airport being close. Value around 1.0-1.3M CHF. The area will have lots of construction works in the coming 10 years.
I renovated the second apartment (painting and floors) during my studies in 2008 and my aunt was living in the first apartment downstairs. A fire occured in her apartment a few years ago so it was renovated and is more confortable than mine. « My » apartment isn’t confortable, the bathroom is falling apart as it hasn’t been renovated since 1956 (true story), the kitchen is very small and poorly designed. The main issue remains the thermal insulation, in the winter my bedroom gets under 12° C (see why no girlfriend ^^) and in the summer the roof stores the heat and the temperature doesn’t goes under 25° C in the night.
In 2021, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to buy a 4 room apartment for a good price (in a « LGZD » area for those aware, which binds the owner to live there for 10 years). The flat will be ready this autumn (newly built). Until then everything looked fine, besides the interest rates going up. Valued ~750k now, but in 10 years I could sell the flat for at least 1M or rent it.
End of 2022, my aunt passed away, suddently. Her daughter, my cousin, is underage until next year and doesn’t want to come back and live in the apartment. So therefore I am torn. I kinda like the house, doesn’t want to sell it. My father doesn’t care much about this house, he’s retired now and doesn’t want to invest time and energy in a house where he never lived. I could see myself living there with a family with kids in the long run, also due to the fact that it is historically in the family since more than 120 years.
Now I am wondering if I should buy the apartment of my aunt/cousin instead of buying the flat. I could also buy the new flat and we could rent the apartments of the old house, but this will be a pain in the *ss due to the lack of confort (among others).