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.

@clary it's what I always say- when you take London out the equation and 30 miles around it , it's not always the case that it's tons cheaper elsewhere unless you are talking 2 bed terraces etc - and as you say not really commutable more than an odd day.

I do wish estate agents would always list the total square footage. Some do, some don’t, some include the garage or a storage cellar.

@JellyfishandShells
What were you doing with your washing machine and dryer that they wrecked your clothes?

Rather a box room than a box garden. Hate new builds that you are virtually sitting next to your neighbours on sunny days. We’re in a 30s semi, 3 doubles and a single. Extended so we do have an en-suite and utility. Not extended by us because ££££££

I live in a US State where all property descriptions include the Sq Footage of the house, number of bedrooms (all bedrooms must have a built in closet), number of bathrooms and half baths and the size of the plot.
You know if it's a 7000 sq ft house on a 1/4 acre lot then you're not getting much garden, on the other hand, 2000 sq ft house on an acre would be a decent sized garden around here.

The sq ft is listed for U.K. properties too

You mostly get the sq ft/metres for U.K. properties but it's usually on the floorplan (ie you have to click through to it), you can't search by it, it isn't always there and is done inconsistently when it is eg some estate agents include outdoor stores, garages, loft rooms with restricted height.

I don’t mind that but when we last bought I just searched by max budget and location and then look at each in more detail.

a country where gardens are not usable for almost 7-8 months in a year

You're speaking from a Canada-climate perspective and you've not spent a full year in London yet. I well remember a friend in London saying his daughter was so excited to experience snowing for the first time in her life. She was 9. He has palm trees in his London garden, they very rarely have a frost.

In UK, we have a different climate which allows us to grow a far wider range of plants , and have something in flower all year round. So keen gardeners take delight in planting specifically for winter. They 'll enjoy working in the garden in the middle of winter. Kids and dogs play outside in the garden all year round. Washing can be dried outside all year round.

I like to think ‘different’ rather than ‘weird’ when encountering things I am not yet familiar with.

All normal for the Uk.
I used to own a c 1900 terrace- NONE of them were built with any bathroom. So all of us had either a bathroom extension downstairs cutting down on the already tiny garden, or one upstairs which was only possible by halving one of the bedrooms.

my MiL has a HUGE 5 bed house…with only one bathroom. Most families would have put an extra one in over the years but this is how they were built. Generally we prioritise numbers of bedrooms and extra bathroom is a nice to have.

You have Come from Canada. A huge country with a relatively small population for land mass.

What did you expect.

Seriously???

In big cities such as Paris. Milan Madrid. Many people live in apartments. Is that weird?

Tbh I can't believe this is even being asked.

Standards are generally always lower in the UK than other developed countries. Service or goods. Housing is just part of that.

Agree with the point about sq m. When you buy property, you ultimately pay for space not stud walls. It’s an absolute con that a double bedroom can be called that without space for adequate storage, wardrobes, sitting and dressing space. But such are housing standards in this country.

It's not you OP. This is an old country with old houses.
Georgian or Victorian houses are still the gold standard, with plumbing and heating stuck onto them and a few alterations and extensions added over generations. Some are listed so changes are very restricted anyway. Our lives have changed so much since WWI, but we still live in houses conceived for different needs.
Houses of the 50s, 60s and 70s looked different but were built on the same blueprint, mostly without loos separate from the bathroom, let alone a second or third bathroom. Something I find very strange for quite a damp and cold country, insulation has only become a thing recently following climate change initiatives, not to improve heating efficiency anytime before. Also, nights are long and cold but no one has shutters.
It's not unusual to hear people say they grew up without central heating or that the best insulation is an interlined curtain.
By opposition, on the continent, houses built after WW2 all have mod cons and and were designed to suit modern life.
In the US if a house doesn't suit anymore it's pulled down and rebuilt into one that works better for its people. Here, people make do around the house, we're sentimental about them.

That's so true @problemouno In my area, (large Southern US city), any house that's more than 30 years old would be pulled down and a monster McMansion put up in its place!

Because they're not built from cardboard.

Newbuilds in the UK are designed to hopefully be structurally sound for 50 years, and guaranteed only for 10 (even that guarantee is very flimsy). They will fall apart in no time.

The houses that have stood for decades were built far better, despite some maintenance issues, and will stand for many decades to come. Some older properties here have stood for hundreds of years already. No new build today will do that.

I live in Toronto in a 100 year old house. It’s a 2 story detached and doesn’t have a downstairs WC. It’s self-explanatory that this was the norm in older houses. I also don’t have a garage as it was built before automobiles became a thing.

It’s just common sense. Im curious to know where you’re from in Canada. Sounds like all you’ve lived in is post WW2 housing.

re: comparisons
Years ago, my great aunt from Houston came to Toronto for a family wedding. For the first time, she saw semi-detached houses and thought these homes
had shared bathrooms and kitchens 😂. Miss her. ❤️

There are some great properties in the U.K. eg Georgian era. I’d take that for sure (we don’t live in one now but used to).

Plus some architecturally beautiful modern houses. Obviously all takes £ but not everything is sub par.

Surely Dictionary.com is American and would have the North American definition of the word? I think in British English box room means a small room the size of a box.

Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries both say "A small room for storing things in" OK I guess it's both...

Not typical of Newbury that property is a 'tricky' property it's been on and off the market for a while didn't sell last year.

@Lonecatwithkitten Must admit I love it.- although I can see many would want a proper garden and better parking arrangements

One big difference is when we were in Copenhagen they were building some new flats near us. All had a balcony- some two and they were almost a year at this block. In the UK that block would have been up and on sale in about 4 to 5 months max.

An agent over there told me a decent 2 bed flat would usually be around 90sqm and a new family home of 3 beds around 140sq m plus. I see many new (and old) houses in UK with 3 beds and just under or just over 100sqm - and maybe 1 decent sized bedroom- the others you would struggle to get a double bed plus much more in them- a total lack of storeage in many but will often still have 2 en-suites. Don't get me wrong, I love an en-suite- but not when it means there's no room for wardrobes or chests of drawers or places to store suitcases and general stuff and many try and shoehorn into 4 bedders on 3 floors, so you then have no loft either.

Lol!

When some of the UK housing stock was built, they didn't have bathrooms at all - just an outside toilet. A bathroom was a luxury for the well off.

New builds usually have two bathrooms these days, but most of the UK housing stock is old.

@MidnightMeltdown and the other problem is that a lot of new housing despite being better on bathrooms and often parking, is very often in areas that are an estate plonked into the middle of nowhere and you've got to drive all the time and nothing on hand- which becomes a pain if you have teens etc and often need 2 cars. Anything nice built in convenient and well located bits of town tend to be£££££££ - especially once you get to more desirable towns