Is this what you’d consider to be a ‘middle class’ style house?

[Inburess]

or is it just run of the mill these days?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/174843149#/?channel=RES_BUY

Hahaha this really made me laugh. Mine is all of them depending on the day of the week (minus the doily & dead aunt I have to admit )

You must be somewhere really cheap, then, as newbuilds around that size in my notoriously cheap bit of the north are not anywhere mear half the price of Derbyshire, which is where Ashbourne is.
4 bedroom detached house for sale in Lionfields, Lambton Park, Chester Le Street, DH3 4DS, DH3 https://share.google/2cXPVV6r9ldHUq6mz

What used to define Middle Class is fast disappearing. As the older generations die out, and Societies tastes and attitudes change.

And of course the Economy and Internet.

The house in the photo look really bland and safe design wise. Which seems to be the current vogue.

Quite big and a good size garage but really non descript.

It’s bold to claim 'staging isn't a UK thing' while I’m literally looking at a £44 million Belgravia townhouse (Rightmove ref: 157525997) that’s been stylized to within an inch of its life. Just because you’re only browsing bargain-bin listings where agents take photos on a potato doesn't mean everyone else is doing the same. Maybe stop shopping in the gutter and you’ll see what the actual market looks like.

That was a bit unnecessarily sharp-clawed. I’m assuming you’d acknowledge that that hideous confection, decorated and AI rejigged a for particularly lurid Middle Eastern or Russian oligarch tastes, is hardly typical of the UK property market either.

Those carpets alone are a cry for help.

I agree. Regardless of social class - it’s a superficial shell of a non intellectual lifestyle.

Save the 'sharp-clawed' lecture for someone who gives a damn. I’ve already had some idiot today call me 'stupid' for saying 'realtor' instead of 'estate agent,' so I’m officially finished with people who think policing tone and vocabulary is a substitute for actual intelligence.

If you're so desperate to find something to critique, have a look at these pathetic excuses for listings instead: 171823655 and 174515789

Idk who taught the people in the first one to hang art, but it clearly wasn't anyone who owns a spirit level or has a shred of aesthetic awareness. And as for the second one? They literally couldn't be bothered to move the vacuum cleaner out of the frame—it's just sitting there in the foreground, as if it’s a feature of the hallway.

Ahhh…for some reason I thought Ashbourne was in Kent 🤦‍♀️ Sleep deprivation really has made me an idiot! It’ll be the new-build thing then - our house is over 100 years old, and house prices for non-new builds are reasonably cheap round here. But when developers cram a full-sized house onto a tiny postage stamp of land, for some reason they charge the earth!

This. I can’t get past page 2 of the comments.
If you like a house, buy it.
I’m a music teacher, professional, uni educated - I would be considered lower middle class. I live in a 4 bed semi
A friend of mine is married to a High Court judge and they live in the countryside in a 5 bed detached with a couple of acres of land. They are middle class.

FFS

I’d call that an ‘executive’ home. The kind of people I’d expect to live in them would be the manager of the local golf club, a head of department at the council, an assistant head teacher, someone in HR at the NHS - so middle to senior manager sort of level. I quite like the house - you get a lot of space for your money and looks easy to maintain. The decor is easy to change if it’s not to your taste.

?

That’s worth £1.5m+ in my area. So no.

Anyone who puts themselves within a certain class is just sad.
What are all those monitors for? (Work, obviously) I'm intrigued

@pinck why so aggressive with calling people stupid, bonehead, ‘what the fuck are you on about’ etc. You are the one that doesn’t ’know the market you are judging’. You are American and used to multi-million dollar homes. I doubt you know anything about the English class system, or what the value of that house, in that part of the country, with that decor, means. ‘Decluttering’ a house of books is not a thing in the UK, unless perhaps marketed to a ‘footballers’ wives’ demographic of wanting vast empty rooms. It’s so odd that you compare books to a dog bed or laundry.

Do you have an anger management problem in real life too?

I'm American, but have been living in London for 15 years. Ten of them not far from the Wilton Crescent house you listed (which, as an aside, is a really weird and dead neighbourhood because very few people actually live there, it's mostly a place for people to park their money). I do think there are some real differences not only between the UK and the US in how houses are marketed, but within the UK between regions and social classes. I've joked on this thread about how can you judge the social class of a house, but there are subtleties that distinguish here that are beyond the cost.

The very highly staged houses are telegraphing that they're either for the international market at the high end, and, at a lower price point, for a more working class market. When we sold our house near WC, for a good whack, but not in the 44m range, we were advised to do that, but went with a realtor/estate agent who sold largely off market, so they worked a bit differently.

And, yes, adding - to take @paint101's point, you also get very highly staged 'footballer' type houses, usually expensive and sprawling in the suburbs, with lots of bells and whistles and acres of white marble (or faux marble flooring). That would also be judged on a class basis.

Buy a house if it's what you like. Never given a thought what class it is in....

I guess so but it depends where it is. A house like that would be about £1.2m where I live

You called me stupid and a bonehead first for apparently not knowing that their home was devoid of any middle class markers because they'd decluttered them all 🤣

In the UK books aren't removed before marketing a house. Is that a thing in the USA then? Is it to not intimidate prospective buyers who can't read or something? Fascinating.

@pinckand, in response to the second "pathetic" listing you've posted here with the hoover in shot. They have a chair in the shower and the house is chain free. That is quite clearly the home of somebody older who has either gone into a care home, or who has died. Shame on you for critiquing it over a hoover.

I don’t understand why people are going on about the decor, the decor is totally irellevant.

It’s a fairly big, detached house, with, like a PP said, around a £3k a month mortgage. Of course it’s middle class for God’s sake. If it was a poky 2 up, 2 down terraced or tower block flat, I would say they’re working class houses (unless said terrace is in Z1 of London)

Seen a lot better for [ middle class ]
A bit run off the mill tbh

Why does it matter? Where I live you couldn't get anything close to that for £625k. You're lucky to be able to afford such a spacious house and if you don't like the decor you can change it.

I guess it depends if you have equity/inheritance.

Affluent middle class. Asking price of 650k with a 20% deposit, that's a mortgage of 520k, 2.5k a month at least, meaning you need a combined wage of about 65k per year. (Very rough calculations).
Middle class covers a huge spectrum.