Is it just me or the UK properties?

[Awakenedsoul]

As a Canadian who recently moved to the UK (due to DH's job) I have been looking for a property to buy closer to London.

Am I unreasonable to think the properties are weird here? Here are my reasons:

1. 2 bedroom houses with one box room are sold as 3 bedroom houses. In the US and Canada they are typically called 2+1 houses etc. I mean it is no offence to box room but that cant be sold as bedroom. Or the 3rd bedroom is a tiny single room with barely any room to move after one puts a single bed in.

1. Most of the semis in my budget (550k) do not have more than 1 bathroom. Even when the owner has properly extended the house, they would not add a bathroom and a 4 bedroom house has to make do with 1 bath.

1. There is no way to search RM based on the number of shower rooms. The only criteria available is to search by the number of bedrooms. Would it not be easier to just eliminate those houses with single baths while searching as opposed to manually browsing each property.

1. Things that would be considered standard in other countries are sold as 'attractions'. For example, some EAs would advertise 'Downstairs w/c' as a highlight in the ad summary.

1. Barring the new builds, most semis / detached properties have outsized gardens and the floor area is relatively tiny. For example, floor area would be 1000-1200 sq ft and have a long narrow garden area. Not sure why in a country where gardens are not usable for almost 7-8 months in a year, floor area as a percentage of garden area is so tiny.

1. Conservatories are so common but they cant be used year round unless you invest in heating / aircon.

Because we don't have much usable land for building on and many many houses pre-date have indoor WC and bathrooms.

The housing stock in London is mostly old, built at a time where I bathroom was the norm and people didn't have downstairs toilets. Land is at a premium and people want separate bedroom spaces, if it's a single bedroom, it's still a bedroom! If you look at newer builds they generally include en suites and downstairs toilets, for instance we have 3 large bedrooms no small ones. Townhouses are more likely to offer what you are looking for

Yes, this is all true and weird. Plus we often have separate hot and cold water taps on bathroom sinks/baths instead of mixer taps.

I think the one bathroom thing on extensions is maybe due to the cost and space available - if you are adding to your house then you might need the extra bedroom more than the extra bathroom.
My house is a converted bungalow which had a huge roof - the previous owners put in 3 extra bedrooms instead of two plus a bathroom. I bought it because it had those bedroom numbers and it was all I could afford in a pricey area. But we only have one bathroom and it's ridiculous. We also have a big ish garden which is a total waste of space for me.

Agree with the box rooms & the lack of downstairs WCs. Where I am gardens are pretty small tbh & people often extend into them so they are more of a yard.

But yes it's because old houses

All completely normal for the UK!

A lot of our housing stock comprises older properties. Many were built with no bathroom, my own home included (actually mine had no mains water, no electricity and no gas either when it was built in 1922!).

Until quite recently many UK homes still didn't have a bathroom. There was a big move in the 1980s to upgrade all homes. One of my acquaintances in the early 1980s had never lived in a house with a bathroom. She had an outside toilet and used to wash in the kitchen, at the kitchen sink. Once a week she went to a friend's house to use her bath.
So, to many people, having not only a toilet upstairs but also an extra one downstairs is thought of as a luxury and a bonus. Lots of homes only have one toilet, upstairs.

The large gardens date from a time when people used to grow a lot of their own produce. Also, land was cheaper and in greater supply back then, when the population was only a quarter of what it is now.

Many of these things are a result of our not having anywhere near as much space to build. The density of London is 50% more than Toronto but that continues out to the whole of the south east which still has 20% more population density than the centre of Toronto. Add in the costs of building and I think you'll find the answers to most of your observations. You get other benefits of course from being here so there are trade-offs.

My family is American and think Canadian houses are small. I grew up in flats in Hong Kong and think most UK houses are huge!

I can see your issue especially as you’ve moved from somewhere where things are done differently. But this is all completely normal for the UK so you might as well get used to it!

The box rooms thing is infuriating but people have and do use those rooms as small bedrooms. Not at all ideal, but houses are smaller here. Never seen one advertised as 2+1. It means if you want three big bedrooms you usually have to look for 4 bed properties.

The long thin gardens - well, loads of people do extend into them. There are lots of conservatories because they didn’t require as much planning permission and were a lot cheaper. They’re less popular now. And people here (in general) love having gardens, and don’t see them as “unusable” for most of the year - one key thing is they increase the distance from your neighbours! And for the part of the year when you can play out in them, the bigger the better. And yes lots were used for growing veg etc (and lots have been sold off and built on).

The bathroom thing - the key is “in my budget”. If you had a bigger budget you’d find the houses with less compromise. That’s what people who put in a 4th bedroom and not an extra bathroom did. They likely had to choose and didn’t have money or space for both. And had probably been sharing 2 kids in one room, one in the other, parents in the third, so moving to 4 bedrooms helped the sleeping space but as they weren’t adding more people to the house they didn’t have as much call to also adjust the bathroom space? It’s a cost and compromise thing.

Downstairs loos weren’t the norm and most people have had them put in so yes it’s a selling point.

Good luck with the hunt - and if you’re looking in London, the problem is pretty much always that everything is soo expensive you can’t get all that you want!

Your budget is pretty low, so you won't be able to get much for it. You can have all of those things you'd like, but you'd need to spend more.

Gardens are bigger on older houses. In the Victorian era a small cottage had a bigger garden because people grew their own fruit and vegetables. My previous house in Epsom.was a tiny two up two down but the original garden allocated to it was almost half an acre.

I don't think that's true in inner London ie zones 1-3. Outer zones have much bigger gardens.

Old housing stock basically.

Also i think people think of the uk as a wealthy country but a lot of housing was built for poor people. The gardens are strips for veggie growing and a fruit tree.

Yes to this

The longer I‘ve lived outside the UK - 30 years and counting - the more I‘m baffled by the ‘number of bedrooms‘ system for indicating the size of a house. Tells you so little - you could divide a large bedroom into two and increase the value, it seems. Where I live, as in much of Europe, you give the total number of rooms apart from kitchen and bathroom, plus size in square metres. Boxrooms count as half a room. Whether you use a room as a bedroom or not is up to you. Those figures give you a good indication of the likely size of each room too.
And don’t get me started on the separate hot and cold taps, and the rubbish ‘power showers‘.

I agree it is a bit weird. I grew up in a 1970’s house, traditionally these houses had larger drives and gardens but less internal floor space. Also very large windows (which can feel very cold) according to my Dad around this time bricks and buildings materials were very expensive so builders used huge windows to reduce number of bricks. Nowadays land is more of a premium so new builds tend to have bigger internal space but much smaller gardens so they can cram more houses onto every development.

Houses were traditionally built with only 1 bathroom - unless you were really posh but our requirements have changed over the house. I’m moving from a 3 bed (one being a box room) 1 bath 1970’s house with a huge garden (which we don’t use) to a 4 bed (3 doubles) with 3 bath and a smaller garden

I know mixer taps are far more practical but I do prefer the look of two taps 😆

Old houses on a small island vs new builds in a country the size of a continent.

I do find in interesting how small terraced Victorian houses which I assume would have been for poorer people are so much more attractive & desired then larger newer properties.

I'm not sure what your point is? Housing is different in a country 1000s of miles away from your home country, with a different climate/geography/history. And?

Not sure what outcome you are seeking here - but those things all seem normal to me. UK is an old country with very limited space. Single bed is still a bedroom. One bathroom is a 3-4 bed house is fine in my opinion that’s what I grew up with.

Some houses in the UK were built as early as the 11th century. They would have been built without proper drainage or running water. Everything we take as normal would have been retro fitted in the last 150 years. Many of these properties are listed buildings which means that the property owner has to jump through hoops to get permission for upgrades.

None of these things are bad - just a different way of looking at things. And I use my garden every day. I look at it and enjoy the green, I plant things, I love that it puts a distance between me and my neighbours, I dry my washing out there. And my cat loves it. Different culture, different ways.

You are unreasonable because almost every place in the world has different criteria regarding how homes for sale are described, due to the historical development of housing stock. But I agree that some descriptions and categories are annoying and make searching for what you want harder. Personally I’d like all descriptions to size include square metres, as the amount of bedrooms isn’t really indicative of overall size.

Or the 3rd bedroom is a tiny single room with barely any room to move after one puts a single bed in.

If you have three children, or two opposite sex children, the third bedroom is essential even if it is really tiny.

Not sure why in a country where gardens are not usable for almost 7-8 months in a year, floor area as a percentage of garden area is so tiny.

Because for the 5 months of a year that my garden is usable it is in constant use - far more than my living room. Having a private outdoor space large enough to kick a football around or practice handstands is a big plus for lots of people with children.

All pretty standard for UK. Old buildings and "character" properties are popular for their charm and quirkiness but it does mean we have to put up with dodgy plumbing, poor insulation and a general lack of bathrooms. New builds usually provide the type of features you're looking for but it's hard to find any that aren't crowded together on tiny plots.

The large garden thing is usually seen as a draw, rather than a waste of space. Kids can play outside all year round, dogs can have a run around, there's space to put sheds/outhouses for storage (Uk houses don't usually have basements), somewhere to grow fruit & veg, somewhere to attract wildlife, and just something pleasant to look at out of the window.