to think that unless you spend £££, houses in the UK are not very functional??

[PussinJimmyChoos]

Seriously...what is it with houses in this bloody country (and yes, I am English!)...they are so NOT designed for family life....poxy pokey 3rd bedrooms, kitchens you can't swing a cat in, only one bathroom in most houses and no space for entertaining....

It pisses me off!! Struggling with space in our house atm and just thinking that if a bit more thought went into the design of it, it wouldn't be as much of an issue

And why are so many new builds so small?!!!!

Susittwoshoes - not that overcrowded actually.

According to a SMF report:

'More than one half of Britons believe that 50% of land is developed, when the true figure is 13%.'

meaning 87% of the UK is greenfield.

I moved from a 4 bed new build (2000-ish) to a 1970s end of terrace ex council/HA house. What has surprised me is the quality of the build is much, much better in the one I'm in now. In the new build (with plasterboard walls) you could hear the noise of people chopping in the kitchen, upstairs in the far bedrooms even with the doors shut. The whole place was made of cardboard.

On the bad design front, one new house I looked round had the kitchen next to the dining room at the back of the house, but with no connecting door, so to get food to the table you had to walk out of the kitchen, through the hall and through the lounge to the dining room. Madness!

"No, Hong Kong is a small island. No houses, but even the flats I saw there were better laid out."

Yes, but unless you mean public (government)housing estates, a 2 bed apartment on HK island is upwards of HK$25k per month rent (that's around £2k). A 2 bed in one of the "nice" areas (mid levels, peak, southside etc)is upwards of HK$45k per month. Dont even get me started on what they cost to buy- put it this way, a LL buying now would have a 1-2.5% yield.

Public housing (where "normal" Chinese people live) is impossibly small- families of 5 living in under 500 sq ft. I'd love to see a UK family live in one of those without complaining. A peculiarity of the HK furniture market is the triple layer bunk bed so you can get all your children in a bedroom measuring about 6ft by 4ft.

Agree with Ivykaty, it's short-termism for new-builds not to have solar panels, underground water butts, triple glazing etc.

Isawthreeships - I didn't know that, that's very interesting, just shows how distorting perceptions can be. I would still be a bit sad if much more greenfield sites were developed, after all, having green space around us (which is where a lot of new developments could be better designed) is very important to our wellbeing. To be honest, I don't know what the answer is, I think that we need to change our mindset over housing in this country - stop believe that flats and renting are 'poor' options, make landlords more accountable so that renting is a better proposition? I don't know.

dont get me started on the quality of the new builds. our flat is in a newish (about 10 year) private estate and the walls are just cardboard. we can hear our dc breathing* in the bedroom next door to the master bedroom.
and after we fitted a safetygate in the doorway of the dcs bedroom we cant close the door to the master bedroom anymore...
friends visiting us from germany or austria shake their heads in disbelief.

I think it's a design issue, as well as a space one. Puss, you would hate my flat as it does indeed have the washing machine in the 'kitchen' (kitchen/living room are all one L-shaped room). But, we looked round loads of newly built one-bed flats and they were almost all really poor use of space - and when you've little space you really notice that.

Whoever designed our place (it's a 60s council building) thought really carefully how to make space go further - little things like making kitchen units curve round the corner in the kitchen to make more room, there's a pan rack up on the wall instead of more cupboards. The bedroom was quite obviously designed precisely to fit a double bed - it's exactly that width and no more! Sounds depressing but it is so much better than places where the architect just divided up the space into smaller square rooms without thinking what they'd be used for.

If an architect can do that with a tiny council flat, it seems stupid not to do it for bigger properties, doesn't it?

I live in a new build flat. 4 months old actually.

It's good as far as new builds go!

Open plan kitchen/living diner with patio doors into the good sized (for a flat) garden, ok it's not massive and the kitchen needs more storage but I like it. I can be in the kitchen making lunch, ds next to me at the dining room table drawing, dss next to him on the sofa playing xbox, dp in the garden mowing the lawn and it still feels like we're doing things as a family.

One massive double bedroom with extra space off it to convert into ensuite/study/walk in wardrobe/laundry room if you must and one other good sized double.

Bathroom is smallish but has everything you need. Shower over bath, room at the end of bath for my laundry bin and I can probably change baby on bathroom floor whilst my toddler is in the bath.

Hallway has space to comfortable fit double pram and cupboard which houses the boiler wth space for shelves etc.

I know this is a rare property though!

The biggest house I lived in was Prison Quaters (step-dad prison officer) but that was in a village about 10 yrs ago. I've been back to the village recently and they have built tons of tiny 3 story houses that are smaller than the bloody flat I live in now!

We don't want to be in HA property for longer than we need to be but just looking at what's available to rent/buy privately you can see it's going to be difficult to find anywhere remotely big enough for our needs!

One option for the UK would be for people to get more accustomed to apartment living and accepting of high rise development. Even in major UK cities, the skyline is pretty low whereas in many other cities- NY, HK, Sing, it's not unusual to live on the 50th floor.

Downside is obviously that you dont get private outside space. Upside is that you are able to preserve big tracts of recreation space for public use in closer proximity to where people live as opposed to everyone having a tiny private garden.

eg In London, if you want to get into the country, it takes ages to get through the suburban sprawl to, say, the Downs. If all that housing was high rise the city would be more compact.

Hi forever - can we be together maybe? I'm promising myself that once the degree is done, I will start saving for a deposit!

Yes. Ex-council is roomier, and better constructed (all inside walls are brick, not plasterboard). Even with cavity wall insulation and loft insulation though, still gets bloody cold in winter. We will never be able to acheive more than a C-rated energy report thingy.

Council/HA houses fab for space. But we've always wound up with shite neighbours in them on at least one side, so I'd never buy one.

Shite neighbours and noise aren't dealt with very well here. You're expected to just put up with it. Not the most considerate, socially/collectively conscious place I've lived in.

IME, there's also a lot more resistance to change and progress here, excuses thrown out like 'it's a small island' 'it's expensive (change/progress), 'you're just being spoilt (for desiring modern plumbing and heating (rolls eyes))' so nothing really changes and much of the housing stock here is appalling and/or poorly designed compared to many other developed nations.

It's desparing. We'd never buy here. We can't afford anything and to us it's not worth it to take on enormous financial risk for some delapidated hovel

A not insigificant number of ex-council homes are also not brick, but concrete or other non-traditional materials which can make it hard or impossible to get a mortgage on and/or sell.

Actually, the 30-50 dwellings per hectare was removed from government guidance a few years ago. It was a total misnomer anyway as it allowed for less than that where the character of the area would demand otherwise, so most schemes, other than the city centre living stuff, were nowhere near that level.

BTW, land price is determined by the yield a developer will get from it. On a very simple level it equates to total value of sales minus cost of developing the site minus 20%ish developers profit.

Our ex-council house is in a village and we are lucky with our neighbours on both sides who have been there since the dawn of time (both sides in their late 80's). Built 1950 - post war, pre crappy construction. I wouldnt have considered a concrete construction - I have known friends have problems obtaining a mortgage because of this.

I know that digging in is costier, but haven't seen houses where builders decided to do it

I think if people looked at the extra space each family's gaining that would outweight extra cost (or in fact it would be saving as instead of a road and a parkind space every family would get more garden...

I am amazed how few improvements are made to houses here, on the Continent due to water meters pretty much all houses have modern toilets, wehre flush is 1 liter instead of the usual here 10. Tripple glazing with wooden frames which originates in Sweeden - works both ways keeps heat in and cold out.

I would have thought anyone who is making any improvements to their house would put solar pannels - I haven't seen any on the houses in my area.

We can go on and on...

Hookups for charging electric cars?

I don't understand the fascination of en suites - everyone on property shows seem to want them - even if they are just a couple and don't have kids. What is the fascination with weeing in a corner of your bedroom?!

Trouble with retrofitting solar panels is they are so expensive it would generally take years to recoup the cost from reduced bills.

I dream of designing my own house and having it built. Secretly, I wonder if I would get it right.

The house that is right for a family with young children (open plan-ish)is less suitable for a family with teenagers (who you want to encourage to have friends back rather than stay out a lot, well I do) who want privacy.

The secret is to have an adaptable house with reception space that can be closed off into separate rooms or opened up for parties.

I think perhaps a lot of houses are now being sold as "spacious" family homes which were not designed as such.

In my city, for example, there is such a demand for housing in the "middle-class" areas, and more people than ever who think they are entitled to live in them because they have a degree, and so old miners' terraces and so on are marketed and sold as "charming cottages."

Also, with newbuilds the space is not great in the

NancyDrewRocked - Where is 'here'? You can get that and more for £420,000 in Norfolk. But you would have to live in Norfolk.

In fact you can get a 7 bed Mansion (and I mean PROPER mansion) for £845,000.

Bastard to heat though.

I blame the obsession with loos. Why does every house have to have as many loos as bedrooms? Friend moved into new build. Had a reasonable large sitting room/diner. Teeny weeny kitchen. 3 tiny bedrooms. Mainly because as well as family bathroom there had to be a huge downstairs loo and an en-suite. Given the choice I'd have done without the ensuite and made do with a smaller toilet. Since when did 3 WCs become essential for a bog-standard small family house?

Doesn't help that everyone still has to have space to house a car of course. The garage would have made a good-sized extra reception room.

But the 'lower orders' always had to make do with less space. Just moved out of a 3-bed victorian terrace built for brickyard workers - 1890s equivalent of Barratts homes - and apart from the man bedroom the rooms were all small. Moving into a bigger 1930 semi and there is much more space and light. Can't wait.