wtf is wrong with uk housing stock

[mousymousehunt]

looking for a place to buy atm and it is soooo frustrating!

• newbuilds with bad layouts and lack of storage and drafty windows
  
• old buildings with very restrictive conservation listings (you are not allowed to fit double glazing WTAF)
  
• (nearly) all buildings badly insulated, only thin double glazing not proper thermo glazing
  
• half the properties we have seen have a damp/mould problem (you can smell it as soon as you enter)
  
• no plots to self build, all land is owned by developers...
  

sorry to rant, I'm sure there are good houses in between, but not very many it feels like.

[minipie]

Are you from outside the uk mousy? I get the impression continental countries, esp northern europe, are a bit more obsessive clued up about insulation and the like than we are.

[mylovelymonster]

I hear you
This is a good time to look at more acceptable stuff 'over your budget' and make offers though, if you're in a good position. Should be more of interest coming on in the next six months. Is frustrating.
I would also love to build a decent house for ourselves, but we're buying an extended place in the stix as that's as much as we can do, apart from emigrate.

Do you use Propertybee.com toolbar in your searches on RM to gauge time on market? Also, cultivate a rapport with local decent agents who can tip you off as to which vendors are motivated.

[bibbitybobbityhat]

I should think there are very few old buildings that you are restricted from fitting double glazing to.

Improving the insulation is an easy diy job.

----------------
Posted from my warm and cosy solidly built 120 year old Victorian house

[mylovelymonster]

Minipie - you don't need to come from outside the UK to be aware of how rubbish and overpriced/badly maintained and generally poor the UK housing stock is.

[mousymouseprice]

I wouldn't buy a washing mashine that is overpriced and doesn't fullfill my requirements. so why should I spend a HUUUUUGE amount of money on a house that doesn't?
we have "only" seen 20 places yet and there was not one that tempted us to put an offer in. we are not talking cosmetics here.

[mousymouseprice]

no cosmetics = I would be happy to paint the walls/redo bathroom and kitchen.

[mousymouseprice]

sorry for the sudden namechange

[londonlottie]

Don't think Europe is so perfect... I've just moved back from Switzerland, where for 800k sterling I could have bought a 3-bed flat with tiny balcony and no view 45 minutes outside Zurich. All new build apartments do admittedly seem to have a higher build quality, but my god do they all look the same and resemble giant coloured shoe boxes from the outside. Have never understood though why it's so damn hard to get a high quality new build in the UK; in most cases 'new build' is synonymous with 'inferior quality'.

[mousymouseprice]

no, europe is not perfect. but they sure have houses/flats with better layouts and storage space (+ space in the hall for pushchairs)

[londonlottie]

Yes they do, but as I say in Switzerland it's at a price. I'm sure if I had 800k to blow on a flat in the UK I could find one with space for a pushchair. One thing which is brilliant out there is that every apartment has a cellar for storage - ours was massive.

[AllPastYears]

Re layout - I was really shocked recently visiting a friend's flat (newbuild, rented). It has 2 bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and ensuite. There is a balcony off the main bedroom - why would you do this, rather than off the living room? There is nowhere in the main bedroom to put a double bed with the head against a wall . One wall has the ensuite door, another has the bedroom door, another has a built-in wardrobe and the window wall has the balcony. What plonker designed that?

(Friend had double bed in the middle of the room.)

[mousymouseprice]

...and don't get me started on the freehold/leashold thingy...

[mylovelymonster]

londonlottie - I don't think Switzerland is a great comparison really as the strength of the Swiss Franc against all currencies combined with devaluation of sterling due to manic bouts of QE means our money wouldn't buy much out there. Doesn't buy much here either, granted, but just think Switzerland a bit out there ...IMO

[mylovelymonster]

For 600k sterling for example, I can buy a 3000sqft beautifully done out house in the Austrian Tyrol (in a year-round tourist area), with an additional 4 nice apartments on the ground floor - two two-bed and the others 3bed & one-bed - for letting out. Garden, swimming pool etc..........Husband rubbish at German though

[Fayrazzled]

I think you're looking in the wrong place. There are plenty of perfectly decent houses in the UK at all budgets. They may be different to what you're used to, but nothing wrong with them- decent quality, decent amenities, decent layout.

I think it's a bit rude to come on here, a UK website, knocking ALL our housing stock too. I wouldn't dream of doing that on a French, American, Australian website, for example.

[mousymouseprice]

fay I think you would, if you were trying to buy a place in another country with all the different procedures/red tape.

[Francagoestohollywood]

I remember house hunting in the UK.
I think the only real problem is that many, many houses in the UK haven't been restored properly for years.
I blame the high cost of properties, therefore people don't have any money left for restoring old building as they should be restored.

Having said that, there is plenty of beautiful, fascinating old buildings in the UK (no idea about new ones, I don't really go for new buildings)

[mousymouseprice]

agree franca the old houses are often stunning, but sooo badly insulated/damp/maintained that buying would mean to put up with the drought or to put a lot of money into it.
newbuilds are often very quickly and badly build with as many bedrooms squeezed in as possible to maximise profits for the developer.
I am sure there are a few houses that are well maintained.

[AllPastYears]

"with as many bedrooms squeezed in as possible to maximise profits for the developer"

This is part of the the problem isn't in - in the UK we buy on features (bedrooms, en-suites) while many countries abroad buy on square metres - so the UK developers have an incentive to reduce room size.

[Francagoestohollywood]

I think, in general, new buildings tend to feature smaller rooms. It's the same in Italy (where we've moved back).

What stroke me when we were looking for a house in the UK (it was 2004, prices were ridiculous then) was that the asking price of a property didn't change even if the property was in bad need of a renovation.

At the end we found a beautiful victorian house, that was in good conditions. We only had to do the little things to it.

[Francagoestohollywood]

little things, not the, sorry

[minipie]

I agree AllPast.

Another problem is that new build work is VAT exempt whereas renovation work isn't.

So we are incentivised to throw up new buildings rather than restore old ones. It's daft.

[PuraVida]

You could always just fit new windows yourself

Also it's not very cold here, not often and not fir long so 'thin double glazing' is usually sufficient

And no, there are very very few buildings you wouldn't be allowed to double glaze. The grade II listing, which is what the majority of houses would have, is pretty flexible within reason see here

[FruitSaladIsNotPudding]

I wish wish wish all houses had to be advertised by square footage. Then maybe developers would stop cramming as many houses as possible into tiny plots.

We're looking (half -heartedly, because prices are still too high, but that's another story...) and I'm sick of new builds where the third bedroom is actually about 6 foot wide. Sorry, but that is not a bedroom, that is a study.

Would love to self build.

I agree the UK housing stock is dreadful. I don't know why we put up with it.

[scaryteacher]

I live in a rented property in Belgium which is about 25 years old, and own an old (1835) property in the UK.

I'm a damn sight warmer in my house in Cornwall, with thick walls, and properly fitting doors and windows than I am in the Belgian house, where I have draught excluders everywhere. In UK I have 4 proper double bedrooms, here 2 real doubles, 1 just about, and 1 no way.

The electrics here are scary, as opposed to cut out switches in the UK, and I have to say, I'd buy an older UK property every time as opposed to a 30 year old ish Belgian one.