To think it will soon become more normal for families to live in smaller houses

[flipflopfloop]

With the recent rates increasing, borrowing costs are so high now that it would be at least 1200pcm in repayments for a small 2 bed house around here and it’s a relatively cheap area of the country. If not higher than this. Surely this will mean the days of having more bedrooms than people are numbered, and more and more families will have to make do with smaller living space - possibly leading to smaller family sizes even. I personally don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. They are building lots of new developments on the outskirts of our city with prices starting from 350 for a 2 bed. A 4 bed home with three useable bedrooms there is easily 450-500. I find it interesting to wonder who will occupy these as presumably they are not yet sold and you would have to have at least a 6 figure household income to be able to afford this.

Wow. NOBODY had an ensuite that I remember in the 80s and at least some children of similar age and the same sex shared a room.
Did you live in a well off area?

We took out our first mortgage before the financial crisis of 2008 at 6.5%, 3 bedrooms (2 small doubles and a box room). It cost £315,000 and our joint income was about £70k. We took a lodger to help us pay the bills.

1. your home was 315k, how much is it today?
2. 70k in todays money is 105k approx, wages have stagnated for most though.
3. what was your LTV?

@BertieBotts I agree about that - our current lovely rented house is 1720 sq ft but only 3 beds (all decent doubles) but we have a lot of downstairs space due to a great garage conversion (used as an office- patio doors, wooden floors, windows, proper plumbed in heating etc , ) and a huge proper conservatory with beams and underfloor heating etc-

It was advertised as a 3 bedder too so anyone who had Rightmove parameters set at 4 bed to get 'Space' could easily have missed it and yet the office could easily make a lovely spare room and it's far roomier house than most modern 4 beds

I also shared with my sister. Only got my own room when my brothers left home.

Good for you 😂😂

My kids have a room each. I wouldn’t have had DD2 if the only option was for them to share because:

a)what if I had twins and there was then 3 children in one bedroom?

b)children are expensive especially if you want to give them good life experiences. If I can’t afford a bigger house, I can’t afford to bring them up in the way I would like.

c)What if the sharing didn’t work out? If they don’t get on, if they just keep each other awake night after night, if I’m still in the same situation when they are teenagers and it’s inappropriate because they are different genders etc.

I totally agree. My sons have learnt how to tolerate each other. They realise that this is house we can afford but that they are safe, cared for and loved beyond measure.

Just looked on rightmove.

Approx 10 most recently added properties are all 2-3 bedroom, average price approx £120k.

So is it that people can’t afford to buy houses… or that people can’t afford to buy houses alone / in the location they’d like / The type of house they’d like / in the condition they’d like?

Other factors include buying SOMETHING quite young, increasing own income, and possibly deleting children?

And renting very minimally if needed, ever?

I agree with the sentiment on the thread but ‘twas ever thus.

Delaying children…

Deleting children would be quite drastic!

Well that's all very nice but it doesn't exactly oil the wheels of social well being.

Grand it's working out for you though.

Just looked on rightmove.

You need to look a bit wider. This is an endemic systemic problem wrt capital, finance and supply and demand related to financing of asset purchases.

I'm 26, grew up with working and lower middle class friends and thinking of the friends I have who have more than one sibling, all of them shared rooms with the same gender sibling if they had one (or their brothers would be sharing if they were the only girl). It seems mad to me that anyone would think it's a thing of the past!

And renting very minimally if needed, ever?

How does one do that?

En-suite bathrooms? I grew up in a bloody manse, two wings, exhibition lawns, a private orchard, boating lake, and we had two toilets and one bath. Frankly, you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time in any of them. All three of us siblings huddled in one very large bedroom, for the company and shared hot water bottle. Mind you, location, location, location.

Maybe bit niche

Yes, I grew up in the ‘80s and no one had an en suite, or even more than one bathroom. Sharing with siblings was really common.

Renting minimally = property that only just meets your needs, less than desirable area, saving hard, getting it off there ASAP.

I know people who rent lovely houses in lovely areas long term and compassion they can’t afford to but a house like the one they live in.

Orban… I have no idea what you mean!

I'm older than you. Nearly every child I knew had their own room.
The primary bedrooms had ensuite, and most houses had central heating (often via a back boiler) I guarantee we were not in any privileged position.
This was ooop north in the 1970s

Complain.

Bloody phone!

I don't understand why you people think that in social housing children having own bedroom is 'policy'? You mean two different gender children, 12 or over yes? , Because tbh, I don't believe any private buyers would think that was a great idea...

I read a post on Twitter from a professor working on climate change a while back, suggesting that a max floor space of 110m2 needs to be set for a family of four (we are to have any hope of keeping under 1.5+) Any houses above that should be split into smaller apartments for single / couples etc.

(our large 2-bed , 1-bathroom flat is 86m2 for comparison).

so yeah. serious measures to address over consumption might result in smaller living spaces.

Oh and more in the spirit of the thread, I’m 50, didn’t know anyone with an en suite growing up, and many kids I knew shared a room, often with more than one sibling.

This. And zero planned storage space in new builds.

my mom lives in the US and her ‘modest’ 3 bed (and it is modest by American standards) is about the same square footage as my 6 bed in the UK. Her spare bedrooms are bigger than my master, and additionally each bedroom has loads of closet/ storage space.

I live in an older 3 bed, 3 storey town house. It's got a drive and a garden and I'm happy. There's just three of us.

Meanwhile, friends with similar incomes looked down on me for buying a small house and brought huge 4/5 bed new builds. Those people are now in very scary situations with mortgages going well over 1k - one already sold and moved into a tiny rental and one thinking of selling.

People have stretched themselves to the absolute max without thinking that these days could happen.

I think in the US, all bedrooms have to have a built-in closet for a room to be legally a bedroom.