To presume Victorian terraced houses are hard to live in

[Allinadaystwerk]

I know they look pretty with great character but imagine they are cold and difficult to heat with the high ceilings...and the layout with downstairs bathroom is awkward. Anyone that lives in one beg to differ?

..... it’s claustrophobic. And I know that our old Victorian terrace was at least a metre wider!

I lived in one for 12 years and loved it, I still yearn for the high ceilings and beautiful cornicing and windows! But it was a right bugger in other ways. I hated the pointless passage down the side of the kitchen and you could hear everything from either side of you, although that was sometimes quite comforting too. There were loads of stairs and, once we had kids, the middle room downstairs just became a thoroughfare. Our new house is very boring and a new build. But I love that it's designed for the way we live now- everything about it is so much easier.

@Rebelwithallthecause yes that's true, but baring in mind when you're buying an older property you might be needing to do electrical work, plumbing, roof repairs, new boiler etc as well as decorative stuff whereas a new build has less outlay in the medium term (I say medium rather than short as you may have to pay for flooring etc depending on your deal). Similarly sized properties where we are charge £30,000 more for the new build, for me that is good value for all you get above particularly as the new build was a better layout (in my specific example).

That said there's usually much less scope to make money from a new build vs what you can do with an older property of course. Unless renting out I doubt many people buy brand new builds for investments, in the short term at least.

I've been in my Victorian terrace for two years after down sizing from a 1970s detatched. I'm mid terrace.
The houses were built for the rail workers 140 years ago in our village.

I love it here mainly because all the houses are so different. Mine is two storey but has a cellar ( 5 foot high!) running the length of the house and a hugh attic. Bathroom upstairs,tiny kitchen down a couple of steps,large main bedroom which is bigger than my old home and three rooms still have the old fire places.
The terraces across the road are four storey and the ones to the side in the next road,three. All so different.
From the outside they look tiny!
Parking a nightmare after 5pm and often you have to park up on the main road.
Warm in winter and cool in the summer and rarely hear the neighbours.

I also have the 'pointless passage outside the kitchen'. My window view is a brick wall! I think if you like a quirky look then these properties are great.

We lived In Victorian Terrace for 18 years:
Pro:
High ceilings
Attractive period features - cornicing etc

Cons:
Condensation and damp in bay windows
Long thin floor plan so long thin hallway, garden etc
Draughty Single glazed sash windows

Expensive to heat

We now live in a 1910 semi and have a square floor plan, Big wide hallway, high ceilings and tiled hallway, and stained glass. Much wider garden and neighbours all have off street parking.

I much prefer our new place.

We lived in a Victorian terrace for many years, and loved it but sadly outgrew it. It did have a bathroom downstairs but we eventually put on in upstairs. We did contemplate staying and extending backwards into the garden, and upwards into the attic but ultimately decided we just needed all round larger proportions

@MyTearsAreOnFire yes it's not very often you see well balanced 3 bed houses in new builds, from the national developers I've looked at anyway. We don't "need" 4 beds but it was the only way we could find the downstairs space we wanted, and to ensure the 3 main bedrooms were all big enough, our 4th will be a box but that's just an additional space for us so that's ok. The house we are moving from is a 3 bed semi new build and we just can;t extend it, tiny third box room, the plot isn't big enough and if we go in the loft it doesn't give us more downstairs space. So as much as I love new builds, generally, and our house is very practical, I'm not a fan of many 3 beds (for us as a family of 4). That said we went for this as it was the only way we could get more than 1 toilet in our budget in our area, so I've never regretted it! Now we have more money we can go for more space, but still finding new builds more practical for us vs older properties (we don't have to cash to do things up so need a ready to move into house).

I love my Victorian terrace, it's cheap to heat in the winter and lovely and cool in the summer. I also have a bathroom upstairs. The only downside is I have renters next door and sometimes the tennants are lovely and sometimes they aren't. My current neighbours on one side are very quiet and on the other side are scruffy men who have an overgrown garden and make loads of noise when watching football but you could have that with any house I suppose.

I live in one, though it's an end so more like a semi. They are my absolute favourite type of house, I love the original features, so much character. But...we are looking to sell, I feel the cold badly and it is frequently cold, we have 9' ceilings. It's an absolute bloody money pit, something always needs fixing. We've lived in lots of houses and this has been the worst. It doesn't flow, lots of separate rooms and I'd prefer more open plan. We have constant trouble with mice, as they can run underfloor, between the houses. The walls are terrible and attaching anything is a total pita.
We have an upstairs bathroom as well as a downstairs, so that's not an issue (in fact the downstairs one is very handy). It's not noisy, in fact I thought that would be more an issue with newer houses.

Yes @CallarMorvern the mice! We had them too - ended up getting a cat!

Apparently they're built to last 25 years

The new estate by me is still being built and the first phase is already looking shabby. The render on many of them has already developed heavy grey discolouration in streaks which I assume is from damp. A friend who worked on the contract to build them gave them a 75 maximum life span. They'll be the slums in 20 years time.

He bought a Victorian semi himself.

I loved mine. Also it had an upstairs bedroom and very generous room sizes. Extra reception room vs a newbuild and larger bedrooms for less money. Walls were thick, insulation was good. I only moved because I can't manage stairs anymore and my old staircase couldn't have a stairlift fitted.

I've lived in them since I moved out. We bought ours two years ago.

Pros:
Rock solid. Huge gardens. Warm in winter, cool in summer. Characterful.

Cons:
Some have better storage than others
Downstairs bathroom - this was more of a problem in one than the other. House 1 had the bathroom leading off the kitchen, which I didn't like. House 2 had a downstairs bedroom and bathroom down a good long hall away from the kitchen, so more like a new build townhouse or bungalow set up, depending on where you want to sleep.

There have never been any huge issues with any that I've lived in. The odd leaky radiator.

We looked at new builds when we were buying, but they were all tiny inside, though they looked bigger from the front. All the Victorian houses I've lived in seem like the Tardis in comparison.

We also heard such horror stories from people who'd bought new builds. Totally put us off and we ended up buying another terrace

The render on many of them has already developed heavy grey discolouration in streaks which I assume is from damp.

It isn't damp.

What is it then?

YABU - I live in one very easily.

I live in one. I love the high ceilings but it does tend to be cold, which suits us as we are both warm people. The sound insulation is mostly okay, but they didn't seal the old fireplaces properly so we do sometimes hear people talking.

The biggest issue is you can only access the back garden through the house, which makes me glad I rent really. If you ever needed to do any major work in the garden (which does need to be done) you would have to bring everything in through the house - which is the reason our neighbour won't cut down the giant sycamore that has ruined the fence and patio.

We also have the endless creepy hallway that doesn't have any windows. Plus slugs. We use command strips on the walls though.

I lived in an end terrace that was cold and damp. But we need to massively improve the condition of Britain's housing stock for environmental reasons anyway. You can retrofit a house like that to Passivhaus standards if you can afford it.

Our bathroom was upstairs.

There are multiple types of Victorian terrace though. So it is a bit vague.

@BarbedBloom I just had my entire back garden ripped out and replaced (including masses of decking and gravel) my landscapers managed to fit a mini digger through the back gardens of my neighbours! It wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be, nothing through the house.

My neighbours are lovely though, so that does help.

Our mid-terrace was lovely and warm. Part of me wishes we’d never moved.

I live in a post-ww2 end of terrace built onto a row of Victorian terraces. Lived in loads of Victorian terraces over the years as university digs, shared houses and the one we rented before we bought this one. Mist of my friends have bought them. Whilst I love the period details and the solid build of them and they look nice from the front they all have tiny courtyard gardens, limited parking and built on narrow streets (a pain for bin day /deliveries etc). I wouldn't swap my huge garden for anything now.