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.

Conversely as a Brit living in Canada the 3 plus 1 thing drives me mad. You can’t actually tell how many bedrooms a house has at all unless you read the description. A house listed as 3 beds could have 3, or 4, or 5 depending on what you use a rec room for.
Most Brits won’t know how big their house is in square feet either, or now what a half bath is. We don’t have a requirement here for build in closets (in fact they are rare) so there’s no such thing as a den.

No proper parking though

@clary The Op did say though she was more bothered about space than garden, so it does have kind of outdoor space just not a formal garden as such- it does have a massive green straight outside the door though. Parking- Mm - yes a bit of a downer but it does say space subject to permission

I was just wondering if that was a typical price for a 4/5 bed in Newbury. I mean it’s a town not a city, but deffo commuter belt? If that’s the going rate there wtf is going on in the Midlands I wonder? No way you could commute to London from here.

That’s the thing about moving to a different country - things are different.

We used to joke about Americans coming here and looking. For the nearest Mac Donald’s!

fir me the great thing about living in different places is it is different to home! Surely you did some research before you lived and knew housing was different?

Well, we have much older houses than places like the USA and Canada.

Also cities like London are quite overcrowded so you won't get much space for your money.

I personally love old houses and think new-builds lack character.

Although of course you will across a lot of issues with damp, plumbing and other stuff in older houses.

We have some bad conversions too where you end up with a tiny box room which is really only suitable as an office, storage room or room for a baby but that pushy estate agents will optimistically call a 3rd bedroom to justify a higher price tag for he house...

@CloudPop''Your budget is pretty low''

Only in Britain/London would 550K be described as ''pretty low''....

Loads of other parts of the UK would fall within budget to buy a property with the spec you are after.

Don't fret.

The term box room is used in the UK but it doesn't mean a room to store boxes, it means the room is about the size of a single bed but a square, ie, a tiny box.

At least, that's what I've always assumed the word meant Maybe I'm wrong!

FWIW 550k would be a low budget in the area of Germany we live too 😩it's an absolute nightmare... no idea how we will afford to buy.

No wonder the planet is wrecked.

I think a box room is a room to store boxes, not a description of its size or shape.

Dc survive in the box room though

My ds did till he was 18 and it wasn't too bad, some must be smaller though

I think a box room is a room to store boxes, not a description of its size or shape

On the contrary, it's a small room. People in the UK at least don't have entire rooms dedicated to storing boxes. What boxes are people storing anyway?

Lol

Bit like,Boxing Day

No one is sure why it is called that

@clary I think it's very well priced indeed for how nice it is and not new build - with the only downside being the parking but there are similar in new builds - this is probably more typical in that area- but again may be less than you thought??

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/126541094#/?channel=RES_BUY

Not surprising at all. British housing stock is old. Very old in many cases.
Look for new build houses if you want all these extras as you're more likely to get the extra bedroom, the extra bathroom in these.

OP just think about the U.K. compared to the size of Canada, land is precious in the U.K., home and gardens are much smaller.

OMG! Things are different here to how they are in Canada!

😱😱😱

As UK is such a teensy tiny island it'll take you no time at all to drive right round it and inspect all the different parts of it and find out how different they are from London.

I don't think most Brits would feel any consternation at the items you have listed - this is how it is here. I hope you will simply get used to it.

We are a small island where land needs to be taken care of and not filled with huge houses.

I hope you find what you need, but I think that "When in Rome ........." applies here. This is not Canada; it is Britain.

We had a box room in my childhood home and we definitely used it for storage and that's most certainly why it was called the "box room". I am old though.
We stored suitcases, Christmas decorations, original copies of my father's novels, the cat basket...that sort of thing. The house was too old to merit a garage.

Dictionary.com describes it as "A storage room, especially for trunks and suitcases etc"

£550K where I am (rural Cambs) would easily get you a decent newbuild 4 bed house with at least 2.5 baths.

Older houses are beautiful but as someone who lived in a series of freezing, damp, crumbling Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semis before moving out of London a few years ago to a cosy, spacious newbuild, I have had enough character to last me a lifetime 😀

Houses with larger back gardens are prized because of the horror of being 'overlooked'. People want the illusion of the sort of privacy they'd get on their own country estate.

Very good price for that. There are four beds in the naice part of town I live in for less tbf (example: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128401781#/?channel=RES_BUY) but equally you could pay a lot more. For less than £500 you are looking at new(ish) build estates (nowt wrong with that obvs but the gardens are small - but then the OP likes that :D)

haha for less than £500K you are buying on an estate round my way. £500 won't buy you much! Tho I did have a mate once whose gf sold her terraced home in Salford for £2,000. That was in about 1993 tho.