Buying an apartment is not buying square metres: it is buying a share of a building, a building budget and a schedule of works that already existed before you arrived. This page brings together what you need to have checked before the second viewing, and then points to the market in each city.
What nobody tells you.
Real prices, hidden costs and the traps to check before you commit.
Buying an apartment is not buying square metres: it is buying a share of a building, a building budget and a schedule of works that already existed before you arrived. This page brings together what you need to have checked before the second viewing, and then points to the market in each city.
Written by the ting.ad editorial team
All three gaps are settled with the same documents — provided you ask for them before the offer, not after it.
The price per square metre is the most visible figure in a listing and the least decisive part of the purchase. An apartment comes with a share of the service charges, a share of the building reserve fund, the condition of the façade and a set of building rules that nobody will read aloud to you. Two properties advertised at the same price on the same street can differ by several hundred a month once the first year has passed, and the gap almost never comes from the floor area.
On top of the mortgage repayments come the running service charges, property tax, any call for funds for works the owners have already voted, and the purchase costs themselves. It is that total, not the price, that decides whether the property fits your budget.
At identical size, a ground-floor flat over a dark courtyard and a dual-aspect third floor sell neither at the same price nor in the same time. These factors cannot be corrected afterwards: they are the property.
You inherit its decisions, its budget and any charges other owners have left unpaid. A well-run building with high service charges is often a better purchase than a cheap one whose works have been put off for ten years.
The difference between the two columns cannot be guessed at a viewing: it is written in documents the seller has to give you.
The same apartment, described twice: once by the listing, once by the building's own documents. Only one thing changes — who is doing the writing.
“Bright apartment, characterful building, moderate service charges, no works expected.” The wording is honest from the seller's point of view: it describes what they have lived through, not what the owners have voted.
What it changesyou estimate your monthly budget on last year's service charges.
A façade renovation voted last year and not yet billed, two owners in arrears with recovery proceedings under way, a lift at the end of its life on the agenda. None of this is a hidden defect: it is information already available to the owners, and you are not one of them yet.
What it changesyou discover a five-figure call for funds six months after moving in.
These documents already exist and cost nothing to request. The only moment they are useful is before the offer.
Five things decide the real cost of an apartment and are almost never highlighted. Every one of them can be requested before you make an offer.
The expensive part is played out in the first few weeks, while everything still seems negotiable.
A purchase is not a search followed by a signature: it is a sequence, and the order of the steps changes the final price.
The rules are set country by country; markets are set city by city. The weight of service charges, the age of the buildings, the share of poorly maintained blocks and the speed of resale vary from one city to the next, and sometimes from one district to the next. The same budget does not buy the same thing, nor the same risk.
Each city page takes these questions for one market in particular: neighbourhoods, the prices actually being paid, what living there is like and the specific things to watch in that local market.
None of the above is settled with a search filter. Sorting by size and budget does not tell you whether the building has saved for its façade renovation, or whether the neighbourhood lives up to its promise at seven o'clock on a Tuesday evening.
Ting starts from the other end: you describe your situation in a sentence — a relocation, a first purchase, parents you want to live closer to — and open a group call with local agents who already know these buildings. You hear several readings of the same market at the same time, before any money has changed hands.
Related questions
Typically the technical surveys and disclosures, the building rules and the description of how the building is divided between owners, the minutes of the last three owners' meetings, the building's maintenance record and the running service charges for the previous two years. The exact list depends on the country. Ask for them before making an offer: that is when they can still change something.
Where the law provides one after the preliminary contract is signed, it lets you withdraw without giving a reason and without penalty. It is a legal safeguard, not a window for investigation: a week or two is not enough to obtain quotes, have the building rules reviewed and get a mortgage approved.
Not in itself. High charges can pay for a caretaker, a well-maintained lift and a well-funded reserve — all things you would pay for anyway, later and at a higher price, in a building that has put its decisions off. The worrying signal is the gap between the budget the owners voted and the works actually carried out.
Yes, on two counts: the heating bill, immediately, and resale later. In a growing number of markets the least efficient homes are being progressively withdrawn from the rental market, which reduces the number of potential buyers on the day you sell, investors included.
Where the purchase is signed in two stages, three to four months between the preliminary contract and completion is common — the time needed to approve the mortgage and clear the legal searches and any pre-emption rights. A mortgage application prepared in advance is the surest way to shorten that timetable.
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