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

My last new build had four double bedrooms in a town house. Build quality was good. Small garden though. My current new build is by a five star builder. It's fabulous. So much attention to detail and all sorts of extras, thoughtful things such as lighting and sockets in the loft and understairs cupboard. Outside lights, tap and sockets in the good sized garden. Beautifully designed bathroom and downstairs loo. It has built in wardrobes also with electric sockets. Programmable bath and shower. We are in a semi and I have never heard my neighbour. We have a private drive for three cars. I'd never go back to my Victorian terrace that was always cold, lots of noise through the walls, cigarettes smoke seeping in from next door and on street parking. My brother pays over £1000 a month for gas and electricity. I pay less than £100. I'd never look at an old property again.

We stayed in an apartment in USA once. Three decent bedrooms, 2 good bathrooms. Absolutely no sound issues from the floors above. I’d live in something like that with no qualms at all if there were no service charges, leasehold worries.

I had a mad moment about 8 years ago when I went to look at a '3 bedroom' new build property.
You couldn't fit a single bed in the third bedroom, as soon as your second child was no longer a toddler you would have to move!
The downstairs was 'open plan' which basically meant the tiny, cheap kitchen (that would look completely worn in a couple of years due to the appalling quality) was half of your living space. You couldn't fit two full sized sofas in the lounge, but no need to worry, you could sit people at the tacky melamine breakfast bar.
The downstairs loo was so small my 6'2 husband couldn't sit on the toilet with the door shut because there was nowhere for his legs to go!
I have since got over my temporary madness (the allure of everything being shiny and new!) and we are in the process of moving from one 1900's built terrace to another 1900's built terrace when people didn't assume a family should be able to squeeze themselves and all of their worldly possessions into a rabbit hutch.

We're in a 1970s dormer. New builds were too expensive. We would have been happy with 3 big bed house, but they don't exist.
But.
Instead of a 4 bed 3 bathroom shoebox with an arm's width between the neighbouring house, a small garden and no storage, we have:

4 big bedrooms. 1 bathroom. A separate dining room (my office). Wardrobes built into the bedrooms. Massive garden. Separate garage. Proper space between us and neighbours. We have teenagers, but even then, 1 bathroom works.

Money. All about the money. Shit quality means more profit. Developers push boundaries so they have to do the bare minimum.

There ARE well designed houses being built but I guess the buyers of them just aren't contributing to NB bashing threads such as this one?

Bedrooms (master & second) with built in wardrobes plus space for KS beds and multiple items of furniture while still allowing you to actually move around. Airing cupboard with room for towels, bedding etc. Hallway cupboard for coats & shoes. Under stairs cupboard for vacuum & general storage. Utility room which doubles up as ironing room (and washing/ironing storage). Cloakroom with ample space for visitors coats. Good sized kitchen/family room plus separate living room to enable more personal space. High ceilings for an airy feel and massive loft space. Garage & parking for multiple cars and a reasonably sized garden (modest by some standards but larger than our previous 70's build garden).

Not a bespoke build or "executive" house (or starter home) but an off the shelf house from a medium sized builder and certainly as popular with families as it is with couples.
They haven't tried to squeeze a "study" in or more than three toilets (four bed) which shows they aren't following all the current trends.
Also we don't envisage it falling down in twenty five years.

All money making scheme. It is diagusting how they want to come down on us on environmental impact of what's we do yet the government allow theae crooks to build homea that are not even envionrmentally friendly.

We live in a terraced newbuild. Built in 2008 and it has holes everywhere. They took massive short cuts. All our heating ia lost due to them not plastering and adding plaster board etc. We have air con all year round from our kitchen units!
No storage whatsoever! And the bathroom was made for miniature humans e.g toilet right next to the wall so where am I supposed to put my right leg? I have to sit on it at an angle!

I think it is appalling there are no inspectors to actually check these homes are functional and livable and have low environmental impact.

Some of it is the government set recommendations, which have dropped over the years (a lot):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

And proper sound insulation between the floors. Noise is a major reason why people don't want flats.

It seems our 10 year old house was designed by a robot because there's no consideration for how actual humans would exist in the space - no cupboards, no space around the bed, no room for wardrobes, nowhere to hang towels. We've got virtually no work-surface in the kitchen and no place for a bin. The cupboard opens against the cooker hood, the door has to be shut in order to get into the fridge. Fridge/freezer is against the oven which is bonkers.

I sometimes feel quite cramped and claustrophobic in my own home but am aware our's is one of the 'roomy' ones.

Totally agree! Plus they don't seem very well sound proofed in the UKZ so can be very neighbour dependent!

I agree. I grew up in a spacious three bedroom detached house built in the 50s. It had three big bedrooms,one family bathroom and two toilets, and huge airy hall and landing. If it was built today it would have five poky bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The biggest problem with living in a flat is service charges. When I downsized I looked at moving to a flat but could not afford the huge service charges. Do they have this issue in mainland Europe?

I wouldn’t want a house with a basement, they give me the creeps!

Apparently not!
Mine is fairly spacious, 75sqm but there is not much storage
A small cupboard in the main bedroom. I've used the spare room as storage so floor to ceiling shelving for loo rolls, bedding, spare toiletries, cleaning products. Hoover lives in there, my wardrobes and also a spin bike/weights
So combined storage and gym room

Exactly. I would never buy one for this reason. I had a friend who tried to argue £150 a month on a one-bed in County Durham was a good deal because she didn't need to pay for buildings insurance.
In the US you have property taxes on houses anyway - there isn't this stark difference between freehold and leasehold.

Successive governments have had 3 decades to change things - we can't keep on blaming someone who made a few wrong decisions 40 years ago that could have been reversed/changed subsequently!

We have hunners of space. Loads of room for housing. But it isn't all in the location housebuilders want to build in.

In terms of space and layout of houses, a lot is dictated by profit. How many houses you can build on a site, then in the houses, the dimensions of rooms are influenced by the size of materials. Builders want to use 1 or 2 lengths of wood for a room, not 1.5 or 2.5, they lose money on offcuts then. Same for plasterboard and insulation. Cutting materials =losing money.

But there isn't a shortage of land in the UK. Just a shortage of places people will overspend vasts amount of money to live in. Or near.

Which just goes to show the alleged alternate parties are just wings on the same bird. It’s designed to make people think they actually have power in their choice when they have no power at all.

As the old saying goes, it doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government will always get in.

Isn’t it time people started realising what ‘government’ actually means?

Labour had 13 years in which to repeal, or at least adjust, Right to Buy, but they didn’t. Could that possibly be because they thought it’d lose them votes?

Cynic, moi?
I can’t be the only person with a staunchly Labour-voting friend, who was only too happy to buy her nice 3 bed council house shortly after RTB was introduced - for £7k.

And Gordon Brown positively encouraged buy to let by a) his raid on pension funds, and b) scrapping mortgage interest relief for owner occupiers, while retaining it for landlords. Did Labour imagine that so many more rental properties would absolve them from having to bother about providing social housing?

Please NB, I am not excusing the Tories from doing fuck all about the dire lack of affordable housing ever since. I hold them firmly culpable.

I saw some great flats when we lived in Copenhagen- big 3 and 4 bed really solid mansion style ones -and the newer ones built there all seemed better than what is built here- better planned- better storeage, nearly all had a balcony or patio.

There are some good flats in the UK but mainly at the very high end or some good conversions in places like London -but an awful lot of what they build now are poor in terms of storeage, room sizes, layout ( nearly all have lounge/kitchen combo in one room which some like but some really do not ) , outside space etc -

Look for an ex HA/council house, even something that may have been purchased as share to buy, see if you can staircase to 100% very quickly after buying.

I've worked in housebuilding. The HA houses we built always underwent additional, more vigorous checks than those which were built for the private market.

Private market checks were often NHBC and not much else. One particular development I took over partway through, all was OK with NHBC but the council had their own independent inspection company that gave a fair few snags that you'd have never had brought up otherwise.
They were particularly interested in the amount of storage there was.

Failing that, look for a 5 star developer...you'll have slightly better luck, unless you can self build, or deal with a very small bespoke developer....these are all very expensive options.

I'm personally more concerned how a 3bedroom semi detached new build in my area is being advertised at just under £500k. I'm only 33, but growing up I always thought half a million was a really special, lovely, big house.

People don't like the leasehold system and the length of leases/ lease renewals and lack of controls on increases in service charges.

We used to build good flats. I live in a 1930s purpose built flat and we have huge built in cupboards in both bedrooms and the hall way, a garage, communal gardens and huge balconies with enough room for washing, plants and chairs.

My friends rented a flat in a ex LA thirties flat for a while and every flat had a big lockable cupboard on each floor allocated to them where things like bikes, prams and other stuff could be stored.

No room for my freezer in the kitchen, I’ve had to put it in the box room. My living room is tiny with two doors and the damned gas boiler in a cupboard. The only place my sofa has is right up against the radiator under the window. It’s utter shite.