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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to say UK houses are poor value for money?

30 replies

Ursulla · 17/07/2025 13:28

They're either old, damp and cramped or new, built to poor specifications and cramped. But they cost more than 7x the average wage. You really don't get a lot of bang for your buck/GBP in this country.

OP posts:
Meadowfinch · 17/07/2025 13:36

It depends what you buy.
New houses are generally overpriced, small, crowded together and designed only to last 75 years. Older houses are equally expensive if they have already been restored.

I buy scruffy, unrenovated older houses that are structurally sound. My house is home counties 4 double bedrooms, good sized living space, garden, parking. It's taken time and money to renovate carefully and slowly but now it's a large comfortable family home.

I've put in a lot of love & work. Most people want instant. That's the difference.

babasaclover · 17/07/2025 13:36

AlexandraJJ · 17/07/2025 13:30

Land is scarce in the UK. Were small geographically and raw materials and labour costs aren’t cheap either 🫤

See I just don’t buy this - there’s tons of land but we insists on all living in the same square metres.

what we need to do is build good quality new towns that have jobs within them etc not cram more and more houses on the edge of towns and charge the earth for them.

Kuretake · 17/07/2025 13:34

I don't think housing is necessarily poor quality (I love my house!) but it is ruinously expensive. No idea how young people are meant to buy a home now - I guess they have to have money from parents or they're buggered.

LadyKenya · 17/07/2025 13:33

Yanbu, it is astonishing what some people are prepared to pay, for such poor houses, with barely any space, in them.

AlexandraJJ · 17/07/2025 13:30

Land is scarce in the UK. Were small geographically and raw materials and labour costs aren’t cheap either 🫤