To wonder why so many people are hypocrites when it comes to housing?

[WestminsterCrabby]

Got into quite a heated row discussion last night with some relatives. 🍷

They are Fuming (capital F intended) about all the new housing estates popping up in their leafy village. Apparently its ruined the views, ruined their dog walks yaddah yaddah.

These are couples in their late 50s early 60s whose children are long gone but still live in their large 4 bed detached homes. When I pointed out that perhaps so many new homes wouldnt need to be built (or smaller ones that took up less space) if people only took up the amount of space they needed rather than felt entitled to, they thought I was being very very unreasonable. I disagree!

I appreciate that people living in houses bigger than there needs is not the cause of the housing shortage HOWEVER surely you cant complain about other people needing to be housed while you yourself have 2 bedrooms per person?!?

Drives me mad and it's not the first time I've had conversations like this with people in a similar circumstances.

It makes me sad to see the countryside being converted over as well but people have got to live somewhere.

Aibu here?

I am currently trying to sell my family home to downsize now the children are grown up. Families with young children who view it are put off by the upkeep of the big garden, the council tax, and the heating costs of a big old house. The most likely buyers seem to be people of our age who are semi retired and want a big garden to work in, space to work from home, and can afford the bills. Most people round us are active older people who garden and have family and friends to stay often and need space. When we moved in (20 odd years ago) we were the only family with children, and that hasn’t changed, even though several houses have changed hands.
I personally don’t like the amount of new houses being built on every available scrap of land round here, I think it’s a shame that productive farmland, mature trees and valuable habitat is being lost. In my opinion we should build up not out, my ideal home is a well built and managed high rise block with good amenities. I’ve lived in a city centre 36 storey apartment block in the US and loved it.

@EmilyBolton I don't disagree with you at all - which was why I looked at specific developments for my FIL, with huge wraparound balconies, ground floor ones with a nice patio etc - they were managed too by the leasholders- I was really impressed- insides were modern and funky and they had a bar, a library, a nice lounge and easy access to a very nice village/suburb.- plus a call button if they hit problems. My FIL I think would prefer a bungalow but a lot actually for sale needed a lot of work or were a bit run down and as others have said almost impossible to get a new one .

I work for a community housing project attached to a charity that carries out housing needs surveys - mainly in rural areas. Our experience is that there are MANY older people who would love to downsize, but want to stay in the small town or village where they've lived for years and feel safe and part of the community.

Likewise, younger people, couples and young families needing more space can't often afford to buy property in new developments because they're simply too expensive - and they don't actually want to buy massive 'executive' detached houses, either that are more expensive to maintain and heat. They want decently-sized apartments and terraced/semi detached houses on small developments close to the town centre or village where they can still feel as though they're part of the community - as opposed to being stuck out in the middle of nowhere without good public transport or cycle/walking paths.

Developers, as you say, simply aren't building the type of housing that's most needed or wanted by the demographics mentioned above because they can't make large profits on it.

I too, feel similarly irritated by people who live exceptionally comfortably and complain about 'over development' and refuse to support smaller, community-minded developments that could be made available on a perpetually-affordable basis (through community led housing initiatives such as community land trusts, housing cooperatives and co-housing schemes). It totally smacks of 'I'm alright Jack, but f*ck everyone else'.

WhoSpottedThat, the same issues apply to older people in bigger homes - they may have lots of visitors (perhaps even more likely if they have grandchildren, and judging by the number of threads on MN, younger people with young families hate having visitors, especially grandparents 😁), they may still be working so need a home office, they may have a hobby room etc etc.

Our housing situation in the UK is truly broken.

We do need more homes.

But new developments are cheaply built, poorly planned, low quality, identikit "executive homes". Rows and rows of monocultured asphalt and AstroTurf with little infrastructure or community, which will be riddled with problems in a couple of decades and which will likely not see out the century. They're the equivalent of the giant out of town shopping malls. And for this we are charged an exorbitant amount.

We also need to stop building on greenbelt. It's all very well to dismiss this as people wanting a pretty view or a nice walk, but the countryside feeds us and provides habitat for all the other living things that we share the planet with. You can't keep concreting over it.

Rather than building a few massive estates of tens or hundreds of identical homes on the outskirts of towns which have a disproportionate amount of pressure put on them, we should be focussing on the conversion of small brownfield sites into varied accommodation; flats, houses, bungalows, which are in keeping with the manner of the town, which integrate with the community and which are built to last. One or two extra houses in a village has little impact. An entire estate is a devastating carbuncle socially, environmentally, and from an infrastructure point of view.

We should also massively restrict holiday homes / cottages and Airbnb lettings. Housing stock should primarily be for housing.

Again, we do need more homes. But I also fully sympathise with a community who is landed with another massive soulless estate which will ruin their village.

There is a better way to do this.

If I can say too we are coming back to UK and renting a detached non estate 4bedder in a nice town in south east and there's only 2 of us- we work /run business from home and my H has to have loudish video and music on as part of his job- and it cant all be done on headphones- plus we need a spare room, an office and a storeroom - so with people still working there are sometimes people like ourselves for whom a nice 2/3 bed semi or flat just wont work practically. As someone else said above with people working from home a lot more then a lot will ideally need 4 beds - and some 4 beds, especially modern ones often really aren't that big

@Lockheart I couldn't agree with you more- you've clearly seen my'crikeyalmighty' party manifesto!!!

I moved onto a new build estate on the edge of a town 22 years ago. When we moved in it was pretty soulless, messy, just concrete and building works. Since we moved here there have been 600+ houses added.

However, 20 yrs on its lovely. Plenty of play areas, trees, landscaping, cycle paths and new roads. A new primary school was built at the beginning and 5 years ago they built another. There's a thriving community feel to it, local shops, pub etc. It's a lovely place to live.

On the down side there's still no secondary school on this side of town and no extra doctors or dentists.

My boys are grown up now but will be home for a while yet, when they do leave I have no intention of moving, however I also won't be moaning about new houses being built.

I would be fine with building more houses if they did this in my council. But in the past decade, they've maybe built 2 more, if that, and I dread to think how many thousand of houses. The schools are mostly awful and falling down, shops are shutting, the roads are awful, the hospital is an actual joke, and they have the nerve to up our council tax every year!

They must provide the infrastructure to justify the extra houses. But not many places do unfortunately. Its just left to rot. God help the poor suckers that move here and pay those inflated prices for houses.

Lockheart, that's precisely what's required, but our current govt, in thrall to the major housebuilders, won't go there.

In a town near me, there are 165 houses which are let as holiday lets. It is not a large town at all. It's fairly normal around here that a large proportion of the housing stock is used like this and that is why many families are struggling to find somewhere to live.
It seems a bit harsh to blame old people for the housing crisis when the holiday home thing is a bigger issue, at least in this area.

I think it's more that the holiday homes issue is acute in some places and not relevant in others. Your community is obviously the former, OPs could easily be the latter.

This is happening around my area , the issue is they seem to put these housing estates up irrespective of the lack of infrastructure and road congestion . The other problem is these estates are bloomin ugly .

I do have sympathy with new housing being forced on people . If you buy in a rural road with country around you it's because that's what you want . If you wanted to live in a town you would .

Having said that people need housing . It's a shame new housing is built on nothing but cheapness .
Cheap sites that don't need preparing , on top of other developments where it's cheaper to connect to mains services etc

The south east will be nothing more than concrete in 20 yrs and great swaths of wildlife habitat gone .

So 30-somethings 'with good jobs' have entitlements to decent housing, but people in HA flats are 'bleating' if they feel that they are entitled to the same?

You would be unreasonable if they hadn't voted for immigration and not had more than their replacement children. Otherwise it is not inconsistent for them to argue against Increasing accomodation availability. its my position I would rather the population decreased rather than more of the UK being concreted over hence I vote for anti immigration parties and pro choice on abortion (also keen on reducing benefits paid out on the basis of having children)

They are perfectly entitled to live in a large house they worked hard to pay for and are not obligated to move or give that up. To suggest that is silly.

Even if they sold it to give up space I highly doubt those moving into the smaller new builds could afford it.

I totally understand people getting annoyed because ugly new builds are popping up not inline with the keeping of the rest of the village.

However - that is the risk you take when you decide to live in a place where there is a lot of undeveloped land. You never know what is going to pop up in that field that has been empty for however many years.

And the youth vote pro immigration parties despite there being a housing shortage so I have less sympathy here. And the only ones that get approved have crappy gardens not like the homes built in the 60's.

That said there is an easy way to avoid land being developed. Buy it yourself.

I can’t get on board with the idea that people who’ve worked hard and bought themselves large properties are selfish, just because they’ve got to the stage in life that not every bedroom is occupied.

I don’t see wanting to stay living in the home you’ve worked hard for all your life as ‘hogging’ homes needed for families, just because your kids have left home.

@Wbeezer @thebellagio that's interesting, in our village we have 2 and 3 beds in the neighborhood plan when virtually everyone we know is in a 3 bed and would love to move to a 4 bed but there aren't enough so they go for silly money. If there were a few more 4 beds there would be plenty more 3 beds available to downsize in to. It feels a bit chicken and egg.

our town seems to have loads of new ridiculously expensive luxury flats. They dont seem like family homes but would not be affordable for FTB , or most other people, to be honest. Im not really sure that theres huge demand for them in comparison to family homes with parking and gardens.

I'm all for new housing estates, as long as the correct infrastructure is put in place.
Our town is currently planning a large number of new houses, but only one new Junior School is on the cards.

The hugely popular, outstanding state school is already oversubscribed, so where are the extra children going to go?

The same with doctors. It's already a gamble whether you get an appointment or not, so better medical facilities should be factored in.

Not to mention the extra traffic, in a town that's bursting at the seams already on the roads.

But I don't think that older people should be expected to move into a smaller property, just for the sake of the neighbourhood.

They have perhaps got well established gardens which they've worked at for years, and why shouldn't they keep spare rooms for visiting grandchildren?

Even if it's a only a few times a year, enough bedrooms and a large enough dining room make visitors a whole lot easier.

I'll be staying in my mid-size detached house (3bdr and two reception rooms) with my garden and cats until they force me into a nursing home. It's mine. I'm renovating it to be my dream home and garden. It's in a community that I am working hard to be part of. I'm not leaving all this behind because I am apparently 'selfish' for wanting to live in more than a spinster bed-sit.

Where I live, they HAVE built on a brownfield site. Hundreds of houses.
But.
The high schools are already full to bursting. My kids have to eat outside all year round, as there's no room in the canteen.
Drs are full. Dentists all becoming private.
Public transport is woeful.
Crime is shocking, but people hear 'n Wales' and think it's going to be all countryside and a nice place to live, instead of a fertile ground for drug dealers.

Worst of all though, I live in a v busy industrial area, which is an offshoot of pretty much the only road into North Wales. Many of us here work in England. Driving home from work is already a nightmare, especially in the summer. But the roads are pretty much gridlocked from 430 every night anyway. I just don't see how so many more houses are going to help in terms of traffic, especially as many of the roads off the bypass were built for 1970s volume of cars and the roads can't be widened.

I know a lot of older people (parents included), living in houses that are too big. But in my parents' case, the sale of their 3 bed wouldn't be enough to buy a smaller house, even if they could find one.

I live in a lovely rural location with beautiful views over fields where I see the sunset all through the summer. I would be very upset to have that spoiled by new houses being built all over the fields. It doesn't mean to say I don't appreciate there would be need for them, just that my life would be impacted negatively. I could complain about that but still understand why it was necessary. I'm not a boomer, rent my house and will never be in a position to buy.