Why is housing in the U.K. so shit?

I visited a friend who was doing airbnb for a few days in a modern 4 double fronted kind of terrace on a corner plot - only 2 floors though

I was shocked at how flimsy it felt inside - nothing felt solid or quality and although only about 8 years old, the outside was all peeling and shabby and the bedrooms- well 3 bedrooms had a double bed admittedly and 1 single but that's all you could get in the room apart from a chest of drawers. No utility, no storeage anywhere it seemed Lounge was absolutely poxy , can't have been more than about 10ft x 12,ft max and kitchen an ok size , maybe 15 x 9 ft - but not enormous - strangely big hallway in middle - kitchen to left, lounge to right. Just a totally lousy layout

I have however been in a very nice 4 bed detached new build - well planned with shortage and built ins in 3 bedrooms plus utility and a bonus downstairs room that could be office/playroom/dining room

The layout and quality are so variable- I don't think you can dismiss all new builds- but yes, some are shocking!

I would happily live in a flat the problem is the dreadful
leasehold system in England

Period houses are second to none. Why are you looking at new houses?

Yes.
As do Czech ones.
Waah. 😩

We don't have tonnes of land for the population so land is expensive, also not enough quality control. I agree new housing is rubbish.

We have plenty of land. If you went up in a plane you would see that. I think about 95 or more percent of land has not been built on. People just land bank to make money. It's our planning/land owning policies that are the problem.

We also don't build new towns, just wedge shit flats into random space in cities with no infrastructure, that families don't really want or need. We don't build family homes anymore, either flats or large 4 bed homes.

Agree. Some countries you aren’t allowed to count the kitchen as living space.

As a silly fucker who bought one, I completely agree. I would never ever buy one next time. Narrow as anything, keep bashing my elbows and knees on walls, shower turny thing, door handles. The kids could take a decent scooter ride down the hallway but that's about the only thing it has going for it. Not even any built in storage for them to play hide and seek in either! 😉

Whenever workmen come to my house they praise it because “it’s solid”

It’s a victorian terrace - in a place where hundreds of rows of identical houses were built for factory workers. I’ve got 4 storage cupboards, an ok size bathroom, kitchen I can move about it and 2 good size bedrooms. My garden is small but not as small as my friend who lives in a 4 bed house.
I’d love a new build but then see how cramped they feel and think naaaah

I believe that part of the problem is that we are sold properties on the basis of the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Everywhere else I have ever looked at property works on square footage. Using square footage would reduce the need for developers to squeeze as many rooms as possible into the space so a tiny two bed would be worth the same as a large one bed property and be cheaper for them to build (less walls).

In any case, council housing was being sold off well before Thatcher. My dd bought an ex council - the former owners had lived there for 60 years and had bought it in 1971 - as we found out after dh had a good old nose on nethouseprices. They paid £3100, almost exactly 1% of what dd paid about 7 years ago.

@Turefu DS and I lived in a flat for a year and I nearly went insane. No garden, no outside space, no green, no sunshine. I got depressed. I felt like I was suffocating. I grew up in the country and living in a flat really isn't for me.

To say nothing of problems with parking and bins and communal areas and ds' buggy. Hopefully I won't need to do it again.

I asked my five year old whether he was excited to visit his grandparents in England this summer. He said no, he didn't like England as people were forced to live in such tiny cramped houses. My parents don't even live in one of the tiny new builds, instead living in a standard 1930s semi-detached. It's one other thing that puts me off ever moving back.

I'm in a flat and there's two bathrooms but no storage cupboard or built in wardrobe. I'd rather have a cupboard for the hoover/ironing board/coats/shoes etc than a bathroom each!

Because we have a small number of building companies delivering the majority of housing and doing it in such a way that their profit margins only get bigger.
It is not true that there is not enough land available for development. I live in the south east and there are over 9000 unbuilt permissions in my district alone . That's because developers drip new homes onto the market to maintain their margins, even while they squeal about the planning system preventing them from building what we need (which in this area is 2 bedroom flats, not 4 bedroom "executive" homes). The CMA has recognised the issue but no government will address it and risk pissing off a key donor.

We could learn a lot from the Germans. They do very good 3 or 4 story apartment blocks, with decent sized rooms, communal gardens, excellent insulation. I would never buy a new build in this country. Shame that help to buy schemes only allow purchase of new houses, but that's just another way for the government to funnel money to their builder mates (and Labour will do this even more, which is incredibly disappointing).

The only way you can get around that is to hang things from doors, ceiling, build shelving upwards with a small footprint. It’s annoying that we have to do this.

The conservatives inability to forward think , profit before commonsense

I love my 2007 house. It has a brilliant design, including a ground floor office to wfh. Evenly sized bedrooms, great living space and storage.

It was built by a 'small' local house builder, rather than a national company. Perhaps that's why they took more care and pride in their product.

There are also some national companies that build and design great homes, check their reputation before you buy....

That exact model is being built near me in the East Midlands.

Because we build houses in this country, not towns.

The people running the country and the general population are bastions of mediocrity, always engaging in nimbyism or worried about hating others have who have more than them. Basically crabs in a bucket.

Just a tiny bit of imagination would say that new housing estates, a few houses here, a few flats there is not the answer. The answer is to build whole new towns, which the private sector would be more than happy to invest in since they would make so much more back from their investment because of inward flow of spending.

Net Migration is running at around 3/4 million a year. A few houses here and there isn’t going to solve this.

Instead you normally get only two types of braindead thinking in Little Britain. Either placard waving nimbys complaining about building where they live, or leftie loons wanting a few millions social houses being magicked out of thin air with money that doesn’t exist.

I think lots of modern flats offer a terrible lifestyle choice, particularly for young people looking to start/raise a family. No storage space, tiny rooms, only two bedrooms (if they can afford that even) and no consideration to sound proofing - we have a new block of flats just being built in our nearby town and they don’t look good - super high, super small inside, right by a major road, no access to green space at all and just ugly.

There needs to be more quality control for certain - my parent’s generation could afford a 3 bed Victorian semi in a quiet road & whilst we were by no means rich - not at all - we had a nice house to live in with decent rooms all separate from one another and a garden. I really don’t like this modern trend of open-plan living - it’s low quality to cram sitting room, dining room and kitchen all in one space.

Land - the issue isn’t lack of land. It’s that the land we do have (99%) is wrapped up and we can’t access it. Developers are greedy, and don’t care about the quality of the housing they are putting up - packing people in like sardines in a tin. Lack of quality control is a massive massive problem but it won’t be introduced anytime soon because it would mean more considerate building would need to happen and that would mean less money for the developers.

Don't get me wrong, a nice flat, facing some green open space with good rooms of a fair size and space to store things - that’s fine. But we’re not talking about that. The flats that are being chucked up near me are so high, so small, so carelessly designed. It’s a disgrace really that developers are permitted to put people in them! No real quality of life.

Our house is an 1800s cottage, built so well. Wouldn't live in a new build.

I don’t think there are many European countries with a higher population density, certainly once you exclude the likes of Monaco and Vatican City etc. Weirdly the European part of Turkey has a very high pop density.

because those cunts have us all over a fecking barrel 😡

We need to change the regulations so every house has space for a dining table and lounge chairs corresponding to the number of people the bedrooms sleep. Bedrooms should fit a bed, a wardrobe and a desk or should t be able to be called bedrooms. All homes should have space to dry laundry or a fitted dryer.

Because many people can't behave themselves and cause stress and disturbances to their neighbours via music and other selfish noisy behaviour. Councils aren't able to stop this behaviour because it's tolerated in this society, as is bullying. The victim is the one at fault for being 'boring' and 'lacking a sense of humour'.

The British don't have a reputation for drunken rowdiness for no reason. Imagine living underneath one of these specimens.