The trend for three storey new build houses 🏠 - but with very little living space?

[MCBfan]

I’ve noticed a lot of these springing up round here recently and I wondered what people’s thoughts were.

The houses have three storeys but are built on a very small footprint. You have just two rooms downstairs: a kitchen/diner and a small lounge. On the first floor, there are two bedrooms, and a bathroom. In the loft there are either two more en suite bedrooms or a large master bedroom, en suite with walk in wardrobe.

Clearly, these are designed as family homes but the living space downstairs is really small.

I’ve just seen one for sale where the owners have designated one of the first floor bedrooms as ‘the living room,’ and the small original downstairs living room as ‘a study.’ But it seems like it would be a pain having a living room on the first floor?

Just wondered what others thought of this trend! I’ll try to find a floor plan. The gardens tend to be very small too, as the houses aren’t very wide.

Friend rented one for a while and I was really struck by how small it was compared to the four bedroom house I grew up in which had a kitchen-diner, dining room, living room and study.

Obv. finances come into play but it just feels at the moment like the houses being built don't actually meet people's needs very well.

Another example is flats - I live in a one bed room flat in central london. When I browse right move it's really common to see two bedroom flats with the same floor area as my one bed. This has always been created by removing space from the living room (which is a combined living-kitchen-diner). I couldn't imagine having a child in my flat. Let alone doing so with a third of the living room removed!

In lots of Victorian/edwardian terraces, the living room is on the first floor. It's not that new or unusual.

I hate them. But they offer more space per £ than perhaps someone could otherwise afford. It's a better use of that land than a two storey home. They aren't particularly family friendly if you have young children. For teens or couples without children I think they work much better.

Personally I would never buy one, but can understand why people do.

We had a three storey house, which I loved as it was very versatile.

Ground floor had guest bedroom with en-suite, my office (I wfh) and a utility room. First floor had living/diner and kitchen/diner and second floor had 3 beds and 2 bathrooms.

I loved having my office away from the main living space of the house, rather than converting a bedroom for the purpose and when the dc were little, that was their playroom. With the utility room right next door to that, we used the utility room as a mini kitchen, so no running up and down stairs all the time. In the evening we mainly just lived on the first floor and DC and our bedroom were on the top floor, so no DC sleeping on a separate floor to us.

I don't like them either, but it's more affordable and efficient way of having more bedrooms. I think they can work ok with a very open plan living space, but not everyone likes that. I'm jealous of all the toilets though.

We had one as military accommodation and absolutely hated it. They so impractical with small children, no where for toys to go downstairs. We’ve bought a newly renovated 50s semi now with masses of space and a big garden for the same price as new build town houses in our area.

I live in a new build town house, although I’m looking to move in the spring as I’m not a fan of new builds now and would prefer something with a bit of character.

But, as far as the house is concerned, I’ve quite enjoyed it.

The bottom floor opens into a decent sized hallway. There is a WC, a kitchen diner which is a nice size, and then I have a good size lounge fortunately, which has big French doors that open into the garden.

On the first floor there are two double bedrooms, a bathroom, a single bedroom which we use as an office and two decent sized storage spaces/closets off the hallway.

On the top floor is my bedroom. It’s a very large space with a build in wardrobe, a boiler cupboard, a side attic and an en-suite.

There’s plenty of room for my family of three. In fact, DS pretty much has the middle floor to himself. It’s been nice to have throughout DS’s teen years as it’s afforded us all privacy and our own space. Now DS is moving out, we will have an entire floor not really used, so not sure how that will be. Another reason why we are looking to move.

DH is tempted to keep it a bit longer. He thinks if DS needs to move home as an adult, he could have his double bedroom, his own lounge and his own bathroom on that floor. If he was ever struggling with a family as well, there is room for a child’s bedroom too.
I’d really like a little 2-bed bungalow with grounds around it personally.

I love our 3 storey mid terrace, been here nearly 13 years, has been a very flexible space. Bought it as a new build when I got divorced, it was the cheapest way I could get a reasonable house with enough space for me and 2 DS.

Top floor is 3 beds and bathroom. Middle floor is living room and 4th bedroom with en suite. Ground floor is kitchen/diner, downstairs toilet and integral garage.

My 2 DS, now teens, one at uni, have always had top floor bedrooms. I did also have a top floor bedroom while they were growing up. Middle floor en suite bedroom was used as a separate reception room/teens study/playroom. The en suite shower was available for everyone to use.

Before DS1 was going to uni, we had a big bedroom swap. Me and (second time around) DH moved from our top floor bedroom to the middle floor en suite. Our old top floor bedroom has become our shared office for WFH.

DS1 and DS2 also swapped bedrooms to give DS2 the bigger one. Now they share the top floor bathroom. I love having our own private en suite.

We've got used to having a middle floor living room, it has advantages, it stays really warm in the winter. We've also decorated it very thoughtfully and bought furniture to fit the layout. It has French doors with a juliet balcony and a view over the garden, so has a lot of light and feels quite open.

DH and I only really go to the top floor now during the week for work as we both mainly WFH, so it gives us some separation between work and home. And it is much quieter being away from the DS bedrooms in the evening as they often stay up later than us.

We will probably stay here for a long time as we like the house and the area. DH hoovers the stairs, not my favourite job, but having 2 banisters is great for hanging sheets and duvets covers to dry in the winter.

And if we can't manage the stairs when we get really old, that would be an issue whether we had 2 or 3 stories, so we'd probably need a bungalow or flat anyway. But we could easily just live in the bottom 2 floors, with space on the top floor for DS when they visit.

We could have moved and upgraded when DH sold his house and we started living together. But we decided to stay here and pay off the mortgage instead. And we like the house so saw no reason to move.

We have one ! Means all 4 bedrooms are really big but yes living space was not enough. So we extended at the back over the patio essentially creating another room.

Love it now.

Hate walking up 2 flights of stairs when you have forgotten to bring something down. Also a killer when you're heavily pregnant 😅

Thankfully I don't have to hoover (cleaner)

Was going to say the same. It’s not a new layout by any means. Even the Victorian’s / Edwardians were keen to optimise the use of land, and so going up makes sense.

Nowadays, with our archaic planning system which inflates the cost of land hugely, developers are even more focussed on squeezing as much profit out of every development. So smaller footprint equals more units. Then going up one extra storey, which costs very little cost, means a they can build 4 bed townhouse and can charge much more for than a 3 bed two storey house. Probably one of the highest margin enhancing changes they can make!

It makes a small house look grander from outside.

We viewed one recently as was much more affordable for a 4 bed and actually it did have a lot of living space. Kitchen, toilet, garage ground floor, living room and bedroom with ensuite floor 1, 3 bedrooms 1 with ensuite, bathroom on 2nd floor. So 4 toilets in total! We were tempted but was a mid terrace and garden not great. I think they are marmite tbh which is why they tend to take a while to sell. This one was reduced heavily before selling.

I think they are hideous. I wish we could return to minimum area standards!At least that way you wouldn’t get screwed over by crappy layout and tiny sizes.

The only 3 floor layout I saw that worked was in a large house, where no one really used the ground floor.

They‘ve been around a while now. Had mine 20 years from new and they were on every new development back then - so must still be a demand for building them.

It was perfect when I lived here alone. But didn’t work well with small children, bedrooms on different floors, minimal living space and so many stairs! I’d never have chosen it as a family home.

Now they’re older it works better again. I’d move for a decent sized eat-in kitchen, bigger garden and a spare bedroom/study again. But I’ve been totally spoiled by the bedrooms. Kids both have a big double room - no fighting over who gets the box room. And my master is amazing. Nothing I’ve seen in a ‘traditional’ set up even comes close. It’s what’s stopped me moving.

As a PP has said, locally they have a garage and room on the ground floor, sometimes a kitchen. Maximising square metre per plot size over 'livability' seems the goal though presumably as PPs have said, they might make affordability for a number of bedrooms. Haven't seen an analysis of resale value compared with more traditional layouts to see if they perform worse on the subsequent market due to the constraints.

It is an efficient way for housing developers to meet government planning requirements on density. Density is usually between 20 - 40 units per hectare. There are strict guidelines WRT amenity / green space and highways. Each LA will have their own design criteria which will specify density, often prohibiting excessive space between dwellings as this is deemed wasteful. The denser the development, the more money the LA will receive from the developer, both in planning fees and s106 / Infrastructure Levy.

We have one of these and it's perfectly fine as a young family of 3. All the bedrooms are good sizes (with the amazing master bedroom on the top) and the other rooms are plenty big enough.

We do prefer a two storey house with more living space downstairs, but it's not enough of a preference that we'd move solely for that reason. If we wanted to stay in our current location or if this were the only house type available in our desired location, we'd happily live in this style of house at least until the child(ren) were teens if not forever.

We live in one of these, though on the bigger side as it’s a 5/6 bed. It works for us as downstairs we have a big lounge and a big kitchen diner, then on the other two floors we have three bedrooms, a spare room, and two offices.

But our children are a bit older so we don’t need a downstairs area for them to play and us to keep an eye on them. If we’d moved here when we were younger then yes, we’d have had to turn one of the bedrooms into a living room so we could have some sort of downstairs playroom.

I can see why this house didn’t sell quite as quickly as it might have done and we got it for a bit less than you’d think for the size, because the layout wouldn’t work for a lot of families.

I love them. Especially the old Georgian London Town House terrace style. I actually think they need one (even two ) more floors though. Kitchen/diner/family room and utility plus loo downstairs. Living room and study, next floor. Master bedroom and bathroom next floor. Two more bedrooms and bathroom next floor. Top floor one more bedroom, shower room plus storage. Lovely! All those stairs to keep you fit at well.

Kendodd · Today 11:34
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I love them. Especially the old Georgian London Town House terrace style”

We lived in one in SE1 when we were young and fit. Certainly wouldn’t appreciate all of those stairs now😁

The Georgian, 3 storey terraces were so much larger than modern, new build 3 storeys though. House sizes in the UK are disgraceful for the prices that are asked.

Then you're not living in a house that OP is describing so what's your point?

My friend lives in one. It's a 3-bedder and sold as a 'family home' but it's hellish. The lounge and kitchen is ultimately the same space and due to the walls being taken up with appliances, cloakroom doors, fireplaces etc, there's only 1 wall they can get a sofa against and they can only fit a 2-seater. The garden is tiny. The master bedroom is on a different floor to the kids bedrooms and, as she has a 2 year old that doesn't sleep well is a massive headache. It's honestly the most inconvenient house I've ever seen.

We had one when in our 30s/40s and it was perfect - kitchen/diner downstairs, living room and a bedroom (used as an office) on the middle floor and more bedrooms on the top floor. The living room was easier to keep warm having rooms above and below it so our utility bills were quite low.

However, now we're looking to retire, all we can see for sale are these type of houses and they won't work for us - we only want 2 floors with maybe an extra garden room downstairs, we don't need 4 bedrooms or 2 flights of stairs!

I had one, it was wider than the other townhouses and more “cottage” like (developer term not mine!). Had I had teens and a decent income to cosy up the dining/ kitchen it could have worked really well, with a separate lounge upstairs. But! The townhouses space was terribly carved up, perfect for HMO’s not much else. The teeny windows on that development meant they were so dark and dingy. It also means your gardens are so overlooked.

Yes this is how they're marketed from the start where I am, with a small living room downstairs and the 'proper' living room on the first floor.