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.

I would miss loft storage and think these houses can look too tall for surrounding older houses and stick out a bit. Also because of the small plot they tend to have limited parking. It seems to me that new builds are built for kerb appeal and these houses can be made to look good from the outside but must be quite cramped. That said older larger houses require much more in maintenance and updating and that is not for everyone. I would imagine internal layouts vary and some will be better than others on maximising space. Obviously 0 opportunity to extend or improve. But its a way of getting a good looking modern multi bed house for a fraction of the cost of roomier alternatives.

I have a three story house not using loft space. Ground floor games room, art studio. First floor kitchen dining and living rooms. Top floor bedrooms. It’s just the same as any other house accept with another floor underneath. Great for working from home, great for teenagers. I can’t hear them if on bed and they are pm ground floor.

Do the 3 storey houses cause more shadows as they are taller and therefore depending on which house is facing you get less sunshine in your garden?

Our garden is south/south west facing and gets loads of sun. Great for growing vegetables.

There's a couple of these on the market were looking in. The ground floor is really a garage and utility room, although they call it a kitchen. Then they've one reception room as the others are "bedrooms".

I believe they're mainly scams so people think they're buying a bigger house than they actually are.

I believe they're mainly scams so people think they're buying a bigger house than they actually are.

You'd have to be super-thick to not know how big a house you've looked at is!

It's also not compulsory to use the rooms as labelled. We use 'bedroom 2' as a second lounge. Loads of people on this thread have said they've repurposed the rooms to suit them.

It's fine not to like the type of house yourself, but to suggest that buyers of them are being scammed is nonsense!

Exactly. Definitely not a scam. The reality is you get more space for a lower cost than a 2 storey because the land costs are less. For the same reason bungalows cost more.

I'm not a fan of this type of layout at all, it feels cramped to me. When we were looking we viewed a few and they just seemed a lot of.. effort. A lot of going up and down, and that's not even considering the vacuuming!

My aunt used to live in an older style townhouse with a tiny footprint. You walked in the front door and you're in a short corridor with a door to the garage, up a couple steps to the small kitchen/dining room/living space... then you had to go DOWNSTAIRS to the actual lounge that led to a wee garden. Go up from the kitchen and you get a tiny landing to the main bedroom with an ensuite, and up again to two single bedrooms with a piddly little bathroom. Whenever I visited we only ever sat in the kitchen diner. I think I could count the number of times I ever went into their basement level living room.

When we have looked the non townhouses that have 4 bedrooms do not really have 4 bedrooms at all. They have 3 bedrooms and a tiny study/nursery. We would rather have a taller house with more equal apportioned bedrooms than a normal house pretending it’s bigger than what it is!

The new builds here which aren't townhouses seem more likely to have a lounge / diner / kitchen as one room, rather than a separate kitchen diner and lounge.

Ultimately, it is about personal taste. Though some people are very weird about the style on this thread, rather than just saying it's not for them!

Our house is way less cramped than our previous one (Victorian), as it has wide hallway / landings and isn't squeezed in. Everyone who's been in has loved the massive hallway (I had to buy a Christmas tree for it as soon as we moved in last year, as it was crying out for one!) and how airy it is.