To think new builds are too small

[Neuroticmillenial]

Especially social housing.

Much prefer old style council houses with the smaller kitchens but larger living rooms and dining rooms.

I’m in a rented new build and I’d trade a hallway/porch and grassy garden for our bigger kitchen (bigger than living room) and downstairs toilet. Our stairs is less than 2 metres from our front door and it’s a pain with the buggy!

I bought a 3 bed 1970s terrace. It's tiny at 69sqm. But it had the biggest master bedroom of houses we viewed and all bedrooms including the box room (where we had to buy a smaller than normal single bed) have built in wardrobes which makes a huge difference as does the airing cupboard.

Before this we lived in a 1950s council house of the same size but no storage apart from under the stairs and the water tank was in the box room so no space for a wardrobe. linen was kept under my bed.

We viewed a second hand new build of more square footage and would have preferred that house as it had parking and more than one loo but the bedrooms were a lot smaller. Had we'd been able to buy that house we'd have taken out the en suite to use for our desk. 3 loos is a bit much for a 4 person household.

There's a large new build development that's going to be built in the next village to mine. Hilariously, the developer seems to think there will only be 0.5 cars per household (it's an affluent area, my household is weird in only having 1 car).

I quite like it. Less to clean. Mine's a flat though.

I agree.

I used to live in an ex council house. Bog standard style, not sure when it was built - between the 40s and 60s sometime.

Lounge with dining room off. Decent sized kitchen with enough room for a table and serving hatch to dining table. Small porch with back door.

Nice big staircase with half landing. Big bathroom and 3 good sized bedrooms. Bedroom 3 was still a really decent size and all had good built in storage.

New builds now seem so small and flimsy in comparison.

The thing is in my area 4 bed new builds would cost a minimum of £800,000+, 6 bed (massive?) nearly news are going for £1.3 million. That means that the houses that people who earn average incomes are priced out of anything other than a shoe box. Yes, I am in the south; no, I’m not in London

They wouldn't build them if there weren't a demand for them. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about? You could also get a period home, or an ex council house, and then swallow the additional maintenance and energy costs.

Yes - or even just coats and shoes! Some have very small hallways and they don’t have porches. I’m in a 30s semi and our coats that we wear a lot are in the porch, as well as wellies and liking boots and umbrellas. I love a good new build as the best ones are well designed - but many others have practically no storage.

Not all okd houses are big Our house is a 1920s cottage and was small. Luckily it has huge garden so we extend the size of the house agsin. And still have a very large garden

That is tiny!

We have a box room which is 2.08 x 2.74.

I'd love to use it as a guest room (with a single bed) but have assumed it would be too small.

What do you think? Do you think that would be do-able?

Majority of new builds are shared ownership so many don't have a choice, if they want to get on the property ladder.

I bet the bedrooms didn't have doors on to make it all look more spacious too.

My Ds and his new wife are looking and won't look at anything under 30 years old as the rooms have got progressively smaller with time. They are hoping for an Ex local authority house built in the 40's

I lived in a ha new build build back in 2019 and the house was small come through front door and you have the tiniest square area for a hallway you can imagine then a toilet opposite of downstairs again small small toilet
Lounge was medium size certainly not huge
Kitchen was an ok size no dining room
Upstairs main bedroom was small and en-suite off of it
Main family bathroom was pokey and you could barely move in it that had a bath in and the other bedrooms was small less then single sized

Older houses are much better

I think part of the problem is the massive preference in the UK for houses rather than flats. In much of Europe and around the world, cities are full of large apartments designed for families, and people are used to living in apartments. Here, even in cities people insist on houses, which are a much less efficient use of land and space. Perhaps it is also to do with our antiquated leasehold system for flats which makes them less appealing.

I’m more bothered about how close they are to each other!

A friend of mine recently got a council new build. Her smallest bedroom can fit in a single bed built on top of a stair box and a chest of drawers under the tiny window, that’s it. Nothing else. The next size up can fit a set of shorty bunks and a small wardrobe and a bed side table. The master takes a double, one bedside table and has a tiny built in unit. You have to kind of scotch to get past the radiator. Her living room is so small that when my DH sat on her single 3seat couch with his legs out straight, they touched the tv unit. He’s 5ft11 and the ceilings are very low, he can put his hands flat on the ceiling with flat palms . Hardly any built in storage and her hall way is not even big enough to store a folding buggy. It’s insane how small it is.

on the flip side, I live in a 1890s miners cottage. Two up two down. It’s small, with a tiny lean to kitchen but it’s positively palatial in size with lovely tall ceilings compared to my besties new house. I assume it’s a money saving thing.

The toilets thing is due to accessibility, to enable a wheelchair user to come to the house and visit. Having to have a downstairs loo that a wheelchair user could use is not an issue with older houses with generous plot sizes, or an elevator apartment building, where one disabled loo can be put on the ground floor only. But when you have the small plot size of a modern newbuild and have to put in not only a downstairs loo but also all the “wheelchair turning spaces” that are required, it creates very odd and cramped ground floor layouts.

Having bigger space requirements would result in fewer homes being built or in more green space having to be released, which is a problem in the UK where there is tremendous resistance to concreting over any meadows. Hard choices either way.

Some countries like the Netherlands and Japan have managed to increase floor space per person (Japan now has more floor space per person than the UK) despite having even denser populations - mainly by building upwards and literally adding more floor space above ground - so, demolishing old two-storey houses and shifting towards three- and even four-storey houses, or just building apartments (which creates lots of extra floor space and also creates more usable space, as you are not wasting space on stairs/landings or on having to have a toilet on every floor). Also, having more public transport/biking and giving up less space to cars. The UK could do the same, but all these choices require trade offs and are hard to do. The British like having multiple cars per household and are quite negative about apartment-living.

What a rabbit hutch. The 2nd and 3rd bedrooms are ridiculously small. I doubt you could fit a double bed in B2 and B3 a single would be tight. Prices from £229k.
Reminds me of a joke about Barratt Homes and an STI from a few years ago.

I bet they’ve taken the doors off too,which always gives the illusion of more space.

This. The UK leasehold system has a lot of answer for.

Ample old-school houses on generous plots have space and privacy, and I have fond memories of growing up in my parents’ large, expansively built house and garden. Rabbit hutches with tiny overlooked gardens that are too small for kids to play in, do not. A family-friendly spacious condo with a big balcony and communal play area downstairs is preferable IMO.

I am in a post war council house which is tiny, with gardens big enough to build the house another three times over. I would trade most of my garden for built in storage and a dining room!

I have friends who have new builds, and my house is bigger than some of them, but they don’t have the garden I have.

I would love to see minimum building sizes become a thing, and I would also like so see above toward housing being marketed by the m/2 as well as the number of bedrooms.

It's such a sweeping generalisation, why are all new builds lumped together when they obviously vary.
Some new builds are small and some aren't. Some old terraces are tiny and some are huge!

My ex council house has no space between the front door and stairs but I just leave the buggy in the car boot. Or fold it and put it in the kitchen.

I don't like new build estates, they all look the same

I live in 1950s housing, one of the bedrooms is the size of a shoe box.
I don't think it's a new build issue.

Easily. Single bed is 0.9x1.9m. You could even fit small table or the shallow wardrobe.

Put tape on floor to see. It works quite ok tp show the space use

I agree to an extent. I prefer the old style new builds from the mid 2000s. My friend lives in a lovely one, she has bay windows still, and a large landing, and decent size third bedroom. It is detached though, and away from other houses (not the kind where they'll say detached, but it is sandwiched next to somebody else). She also has a nice garden too.
I grew up in an old house, and it was smaller than my friends house, so it depends. They are building some huge new build houses, you can get lovely ones, but they are a lot more expensive.

I don't agree on the kitchen, because I do alot of cooking and baking. I love a large spacious kitchen, and a table preferably in there as well. I quite like a smaller cosy living room that you can snuggle up in. It is very much personal preference I suppose.

It's really dishonest. The furniture is the floor plan is not the same size as normal furniture I mean they must be toddler beds in bedroom 2 and 3