Why are new builds teeny tiny?

[Baptiste11]

Went to view a new housing estate yesterday and had a look round the show home. Well. It was tiny. It was a 3 bed semi with parking for 2 cars but inside I could not believe the room dimensions.

The kitchen/diner had a small table and chairs in, the lounge was so tiny it only had a small two seater and an armchair. The family bathroom had no window and was tiny. The master bedroom did have a small fitted wardrobe but the other two bedrooms had no wardrobe space and were furnished with only a bedside table and dressing table - no room for a chest of drawers etc

For the price of what was obviously meant to be a family home I couldn’t believe how small it was. The thought of spending lockdown in the tiny living room made me shudder. There was also nowhere anyone could work from home - no room for a desk and chair.

How do developers get away with building such tiny properties?

Apparently most of the development is sold out & there is a waiting list for the next phase!
And you have to pay a service charge and a grounds fee every year (which they can increase whenever they want) just for the pleasure of living there!

I agree. Even the bigger 4/5 bed homes have hardly any garden. I struggle to find one with a front and back garden as big as my 80 year old semidetached. But some people want brand new, no hassle, easy to decorate houses. Also there’s no chain and possible part exchange so they’ll always be popular.

@purplesequins

I agree. and the furniture is sometimes a lot smaller than standard furniture. we saw a place where the 'single' bedroom only fitted a toddler bed (160cm) but was made up to look like a standard single with adult looking bedding. take a tape measure!

I also don't understand why in 3 bedroom places the bedrooms are such dirfferent sizes. so unfair for whoever ends up with the smallest room.

It always seems to have been a ‘thing’ that a 3 or 4 bed house will have one teeny bedroom. Our house is a 1960s 4 bed, with originally one very good sized double bedroom (not the master) and a teeny one next to it.

Dh moved the dividing (stud) wall, to make them more equal sized - the bigger is still a good sized double - why on earth the builders didn’t do that in the first place defeats me.

The ever increasing cost of land, materials and wages determines the size of housing versus profit margin for the builder. If there weren't so many people living in this country, there would be loads of empty large properties.

If you support large scale immigration, the freedom to have large families and it being easy to spilt from partners, thus producing an extra two or more households, then you have to accept there will be an ever decreasing amount of land to build new homes.

It totally depends on the development. I’m sat in my new build, not tiny and loads of storage cupboards including a massive airing cupboard and walk in wardrobes. Can’t hear neighbours etc however same developer in a different local development houses are tiny, no cupboards.

No one is being forced to buy them though, and the dimensions are published for everyone to see before contracts etc are signed. I think it's quite simplistic to say it's down to greedy builders as many people do buy them, and as the show home is generally open 9-5, it's actually much easier to do repeated visits and measure exactly what you're getting for your money.

I've recently purchased a new build and waited for a development with big gardens and decent room sizes etc because I did my research and wasn't taken in by the tricks such as show homes without wardrobes, which are pretty well published.

Long story short, they wouldn't build them if there wasn't a market for them

Why are the government/local authorities allowing these mini houses? And don't get me started on the awful office-to-flat conversions we have around here. No space to get the proverbial cat in, let alone swing it. You'd have got more space in the average Victorian tenement. Could it be a sneaky way to sort out the obesity crisis? You'd have to keep your weight in check, wouldn't you?

The U.K. is one of the few European countries which doesn't have minimum space standards for private housing - there is sort of one but it's not statutory regulation and so is optional and actually most homes are bigger than the minimum that was set

Social housing on the other hand does have minimum space standards especially for bedroom sizes etc and has done for decades hence why ex local authority houses tend to feel roomier

There was something a few years ago which was part of obtaining Code points whereby a developer had to build homes with certain room sizes, light levels, airing cupboards etc but it's seems to have been diluted now

Also in the U.K. the housing market is valued differently to other countries - on number of bedrooms - whereas in other countries it's m2 - hence why developers will try and squeeeze in a 3rd or 4th bedroom as it can then be marketed at a higher value

As to the point regarding sound insulation - new build homes have to meet minimum sound insulation levels between party walls so yes they should be very well insulated compared to say a 1980s house and definitely 1960s/1970s etc

If you support large scale immigration, the freedom to have large families and it being easy to spilt from partners, thus producing an extra two or more households, then you have to accept there will be an ever decreasing amount of land to build new homes.

This, plus-
Intergenerational living is a thing of the past. It used to be the norm that two or three generations shared a home.
Many divorced families have two houses (people used to stay together when divorce was frowned on).
People live longer, and stay in their own homes longer.
Young unmarried people buy their own homes rather than staying at home until they are married.
People are more likely to work away from home and buy/rent a flat Close to work to use for 4 days a week.
Holiday/second homes.
Buying property to let out as an investment.

Our small town has a development on the outskirts of 700 houses. Reading the estate agents' blurb on Rightmove is so depressing. 'Executive 3-bed homes with the countryside on your doorstep'. No, there was countryside unfortunately it's been built on!
'Spacious family lounge' which is 13' x 11',
'A utility room to store all the clutter of living with a family' which means there is no room in the 'large double bedrooms' which are 11' x 9' and nowhere to put wardrobes as doors and windows are in the way!
'Garage ideal for converting into second reception'
I've heard these semis are being snapped up by landlords at the outrageous price of 500k plus.

It depends what price point you’re looking at. We’re in the process of buying the biggest house on our estate and it’s huge. I agree though that some of the smaller ones are tiny. I looked at one and the square footage was about a third of ours and you could barely swing a cat. However, we’re moving from a more expensive city to a cheaper one so had a rather large deposit which helped 😂

@imacuddler

There should be laws about sizes of rooms you can call bedrooms. We had a three bed and the third bedroom should have been called a cupboard. A bedroom should be able to fit a full size single bed and a wardrobe at least!

Thatcher got rid of the post war Parker Morris rules on house/room sizes/how many beds/toilets a house needed.

The tory Party are funded by building companies

Fairly obvious why new builds are tiny.

And don't get me started on local district councils pocketing huge bungs.

En suites seem the fashion now as do cavernous kitchen diners at the expense of actual living space.

There has been constant building in my town for the past decade. No more infrastructure though sadly which during a pandemic has been challenging.

The houses are tiny. Many many toilets and bathrooms, tiny gardens, no storage.

The smaller houses are like 2 up 2 down tenements. We seem as a society to be going backwards from the post war consensus of building better.

Oh, and garages you can't actually fit a car into!

There used to be laws about room sizes - they were called Parker Morris standards. I think a single bedroom had to be at least 2.5m wide with a total area of no less than 8.5 m2. Or something like that. They had been carefully worked out by calculating how much room people need to move around, get past each other etc. I think they set them out in the 1950s.
They were abolished by the Tories, I think in the 1980s, and since then new build homes have been getting gradually smaller.

They need to reinstate those rules, although they couldn't be applied in retrospect, you would have to knock down loads of new builds.

sorry cross posted with Mrs08

Because land is expensive. This is why we went for an older house as lamd was cheaper so the plots houses were built on were bigger

@fluffedup

sorry cross posted with Mrs08

👍

@Doubledoorsontogarden

It totally depends on the development. I’m sat in my new build, not tiny and loads of storage cupboards including a massive airing cupboard and walk in wardrobes. Can’t hear neighbours etc however same developer in a different local development houses are tiny, no cupboards.

It’s all relative.

There is an amazing estate near me. Just completed.
Huge new build houses with big gardens, double drives, wide roads.
Massive price tag too.

Ordinary 4/3 beds in most people’s price range can be really small.

Land is expensive

You might think housebuilders make obscene profits but many actually don't

I don't see the fascination with ensuites personally - especially ones without windows. I'd rather have larger bedrooms and additional storage

2 and 3 bedroom houses will be small. Really you need to be looking at 4 bedroom plus to get a decent living space

I also feel sorry for many new build owners who have to pay a service charge for the upkeep of nearby green space, as opposed to it being covered by council tax. But they also pay council tax as well. How on earth has that been allowed?
I live in a 50 year old house, there is green space behind my house and a big patch in a nearby new build estate. I can go on all the green space and pay council tax only. But the new build people have to pay the service charge as well.

There were teeny houses built in the not so distant past, too. In SW London I’ve seen a whole road of tiny terraced houses, barely 50 sq m, 2 beds, outside loo and no actual bathroom (originally), front door opening directly into the one small living room - tiny kitchen. All built around 1910.

However they are all freehold, and now sell for more than considerably larger 2 bed Edwardian LH maisonettes in the same area, which were all built with a good sized bathroom.
In that era they would all have been built to rent out, so presumably the larger ones would have rented for rather more than the teeny houses.

I dare say small was an advantage in some ways though - cheaper to heat, and of course ordinary people had way less stuff inc. clothes, to find room for, when all stuff was proportionately far more expensive than it is now.

New builds aren't regulated on size like council housing was.

@fluffedup

Because why should everyone in the local authority pay higher council tax charges to cover upkeep of grounds, play areas etc for a development only a fraction of the residents in the borough live on?

These aren't parks that in the normal sense of the word that people would travel to - they are smallish areas of open space and maybe a small play area which is used only by the residents

I can't understand why people would choose one of these when they could get an older larger house cheaper? Is it because of shared ownership schemes?
New houses often lose "value" over the first few years. At least they do in my area.
Like a pp said I advised my DC to avoid new builds. DS got a large 3 bed ex council house which is much bigger than any new build available and cost £140k rather than £200k.

@fluffedup that's the councils problem as they refuse to take on many maintenance of areas within the developments so you have to pay a private company to do so.

Our first home was a 1950s semi.

So solidly built...front garden, drive, garage, decent size back garden. We were able to extend and improve it a lot.

Our current home is a 1980s detached. Good size, originally a 4 bed altered to 3 doubles. Original integral garage altered to extra reception room and wc by previous owners. Off road parking for 2 cars and decent sized back garden. Downside is narrow roads on the estate. I guess in the 1980s not that many people had cars/multiple cars?

The difference in our house and the new builds being put up locally are stark.

There is one for sale currently for £550k which has a garage no car will fit into and tiny front and back gardens. It's on a main road and close to a very deprived area.

Insane.