Why is housing in the U.K. so shit?

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

I don’t even mean your ‘built for another time’ Victorian houses, I mean ones built in the last 20 years (and continue to be built).

Counterintuitive layouts, more toilets than bedrooms, strange angles, no storage whatsoever. We’re house hunting and it’s driving me mental!

Exactly. I would never buy one for this reason. I had a friend who tried to argue £150 a month on a one-bed in County Durham was a good deal because she didn't need to pay for buildings insurance.
In the US you have property taxes on houses anyway - there isn't this stark difference between freehold and leasehold.

Apparently not!
Mine is fairly spacious, 75sqm but there is not much storage
A small cupboard in the main bedroom. I've used the spare room as storage so floor to ceiling shelving for loo rolls, bedding, spare toiletries, cleaning products. Hoover lives in there, my wardrobes and also a spin bike/weights
So combined storage and gym room

I wouldn’t want a house with a basement, they give me the creeps!

The biggest problem with living in a flat is service charges. When I downsized I looked at moving to a flat but could not afford the huge service charges. Do they have this issue in mainland Europe?

I agree. I grew up in a spacious three bedroom detached house built in the 50s. It had three big bedrooms,one family bathroom and two toilets, and huge airy hall and landing. If it was built today it would have five poky bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Totally agree! Plus they don't seem very well sound proofed in the UKZ so can be very neighbour dependent!

It seems our 10 year old house was designed by a robot because there's no consideration for how actual humans would exist in the space - no cupboards, no space around the bed, no room for wardrobes, nowhere to hang towels. We've got virtually no work-surface in the kitchen and no place for a bin. The cupboard opens against the cooker hood, the door has to be shut in order to get into the fridge. Fridge/freezer is against the oven which is bonkers.

I sometimes feel quite cramped and claustrophobic in my own home but am aware our's is one of the 'roomy' ones.

And proper sound insulation between the floors. Noise is a major reason why people don't want flats.

Some of it is the government set recommendations, which have dropped over the years (a lot):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard/technical-housing-standards-nationally-described-space-standard

All money making scheme. It is diagusting how they want to come down on us on environmental impact of what's we do yet the government allow theae crooks to build homea that are not even envionrmentally friendly.

We live in a terraced newbuild. Built in 2008 and it has holes everywhere. They took massive short cuts. All our heating ia lost due to them not plastering and adding plaster board etc. We have air con all year round from our kitchen units!
No storage whatsoever! And the bathroom was made for miniature humans e.g toilet right next to the wall so where am I supposed to put my right leg? I have to sit on it at an angle!

I think it is appalling there are no inspectors to actually check these homes are functional and livable and have low environmental impact.

There ARE well designed houses being built but I guess the buyers of them just aren't contributing to NB bashing threads such as this one?

Bedrooms (master & second) with built in wardrobes plus space for KS beds and multiple items of furniture while still allowing you to actually move around. Airing cupboard with room for towels, bedding etc. Hallway cupboard for coats & shoes. Under stairs cupboard for vacuum & general storage. Utility room which doubles up as ironing room (and washing/ironing storage). Cloakroom with ample space for visitors coats. Good sized kitchen/family room plus separate living room to enable more personal space. High ceilings for an airy feel and massive loft space. Garage & parking for multiple cars and a reasonably sized garden (modest by some standards but larger than our previous 70's build garden).

Not a bespoke build or "executive" house (or starter home) but an off the shelf house from a medium sized builder and certainly as popular with families as it is with couples.
They haven't tried to squeeze a "study" in or more than three toilets (four bed) which shows they aren't following all the current trends.
Also we don't envisage it falling down in twenty five years.

Money. All about the money. Shit quality means more profit. Developers push boundaries so they have to do the bare minimum.

We're in a 1970s dormer. New builds were too expensive. We would have been happy with 3 big bed house, but they don't exist.
But.
Instead of a 4 bed 3 bathroom shoebox with an arm's width between the neighbouring house, a small garden and no storage, we have:

4 big bedrooms. 1 bathroom. A separate dining room (my office). Wardrobes built into the bedrooms. Massive garden. Separate garage. Proper space between us and neighbours. We have teenagers, but even then, 1 bathroom works.

I had a mad moment about 8 years ago when I went to look at a '3 bedroom' new build property.
You couldn't fit a single bed in the third bedroom, as soon as your second child was no longer a toddler you would have to move!
The downstairs was 'open plan' which basically meant the tiny, cheap kitchen (that would look completely worn in a couple of years due to the appalling quality) was half of your living space. You couldn't fit two full sized sofas in the lounge, but no need to worry, you could sit people at the tacky melamine breakfast bar.
The downstairs loo was so small my 6'2 husband couldn't sit on the toilet with the door shut because there was nowhere for his legs to go!
I have since got over my temporary madness (the allure of everything being shiny and new!) and we are in the process of moving from one 1900's built terrace to another 1900's built terrace when people didn't assume a family should be able to squeeze themselves and all of their worldly possessions into a rabbit hutch.

We stayed in an apartment in USA once. Three decent bedrooms, 2 good bathrooms. Absolutely no sound issues from the floors above. I’d live in something like that with no qualms at all if there were no service charges, leasehold worries.

My last new build had four double bedrooms in a town house. Build quality was good. Small garden though. My current new build is by a five star builder. It's fabulous. So much attention to detail and all sorts of extras, thoughtful things such as lighting and sockets in the loft and understairs cupboard. Outside lights, tap and sockets in the good sized garden. Beautifully designed bathroom and downstairs loo. It has built in wardrobes also with electric sockets. Programmable bath and shower. We are in a semi and I have never heard my neighbour. We have a private drive for three cars. I'd never go back to my Victorian terrace that was always cold, lots of noise through the walls, cigarettes smoke seeping in from next door and on street parking. My brother pays over £1000 a month for gas and electricity. I pay less than £100. I'd never look at an old property again.

We need to change the regulations so every house has space for a dining table and lounge chairs corresponding to the number of people the bedrooms sleep. Bedrooms should fit a bed, a wardrobe and a desk or should t be able to be called bedrooms. All homes should have space to dry laundry or a fitted dryer.

Because many people can't behave themselves and cause stress and disturbances to their neighbours via music and other selfish noisy behaviour. Councils aren't able to stop this behaviour because it's tolerated in this society, as is bullying. The victim is the one at fault for being 'boring' and 'lacking a sense of humour'.

The British don't have a reputation for drunken rowdiness for no reason. Imagine living underneath one of these specimens.

because those cunts have us all over a fecking barrel 😡

I don’t think there are many European countries with a higher population density, certainly once you exclude the likes of Monaco and Vatican City etc. Weirdly the European part of Turkey has a very high pop density.

Our house is an 1800s cottage, built so well. Wouldn't live in a new build.

I think lots of modern flats offer a terrible lifestyle choice, particularly for young people looking to start/raise a family. No storage space, tiny rooms, only two bedrooms (if they can afford that even) and no consideration to sound proofing - we have a new block of flats just being built in our nearby town and they don’t look good - super high, super small inside, right by a major road, no access to green space at all and just ugly.

There needs to be more quality control for certain - my parent’s generation could afford a 3 bed Victorian semi in a quiet road & whilst we were by no means rich - not at all - we had a nice house to live in with decent rooms all separate from one another and a garden. I really don’t like this modern trend of open-plan living - it’s low quality to cram sitting room, dining room and kitchen all in one space.

Land - the issue isn’t lack of land. It’s that the land we do have (99%) is wrapped up and we can’t access it. Developers are greedy, and don’t care about the quality of the housing they are putting up - packing people in like sardines in a tin. Lack of quality control is a massive massive problem but it won’t be introduced anytime soon because it would mean more considerate building would need to happen and that would mean less money for the developers.

Don't get me wrong, a nice flat, facing some green open space with good rooms of a fair size and space to store things - that’s fine. But we’re not talking about that. The flats that are being chucked up near me are so high, so small, so carelessly designed. It’s a disgrace really that developers are permitted to put people in them! No real quality of life.

Because we build houses in this country, not towns.

The people running the country and the general population are bastions of mediocrity, always engaging in nimbyism or worried about hating others have who have more than them. Basically crabs in a bucket.

Just a tiny bit of imagination would say that new housing estates, a few houses here, a few flats there is not the answer. The answer is to build whole new towns, which the private sector would be more than happy to invest in since they would make so much more back from their investment because of inward flow of spending.

Net Migration is running at around 3/4 million a year. A few houses here and there isn’t going to solve this.

Instead you normally get only two types of braindead thinking in Little Britain. Either placard waving nimbys complaining about building where they live, or leftie loons wanting a few millions social houses being magicked out of thin air with money that doesn’t exist.

That exact model is being built near me in the East Midlands.

I love my 2007 house. It has a brilliant design, including a ground floor office to wfh. Evenly sized bedrooms, great living space and storage.

It was built by a 'small' local house builder, rather than a national company. Perhaps that's why they took more care and pride in their product.

There are also some national companies that build and design great homes, check their reputation before you buy....