just what is the 'average' house ??

brightonman123

tv recently seems to be getting rather giddy about £xx for the average house in the UK, but just what is this? a 2 up 2 down, a poley apartment, or a WAG mansion?

even a rise in a few larger properties could corrupt the overall average, so i think they need to be clearer as to what is being measured..

any stats as to what kinds of homes there are, in UK? (%age flats, 2 bed houses, 3/4 beds, etc..)

live from b'man, under the pier..:beer:

Generali

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/housing.asp

It's fascinating (not being sarcastic).

GDB2222

brightonman123 wrote: »

even a rise in a few larger properties could corrupt the overall average

Nationwide (I think it's them) use a mix-adjusted average property price to avoid that sort of problem. So, they measure the prices of different types of property then produce a weighted average, where the weights are the different propertions of that type of property in the country.

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/housing.asp

It's fascinating (not being sarcastic).

"One in 25 households in South Bucks owns four or more cars."

Cause or effect? If you own 4 cars, you presumably have to live out in the country?

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Nationwide (I think it's them) use a mix-adjusted average property price to avoid that sort of problem. So, they measure the prices of different types of property then produce a weighted average, where the weights are the different propertions of that type of property in the country.

I think that all the indices are mix adjusted except Land Registry which doesn't need to be as they compare the current selling price of a property with its previous selling price. If you produced a non-mix adjusted index you wouldn't be comparing like-with-like and the numbers would be all over the place.

GDB2222 wrote: »

"One in 25 households in South Bucks owns four or more cars."

Cause or effect? If you own 4 cars, you presumably have to live out in the country?

And have quite a lot of money! Is South Bucks a rural area? I don't know Bucks very well.

GDB2222

Yes, it's fairly rural - stockbroker belt.

Chris2685

GDB2222 wrote: »

"One in 25 households in South Bucks owns four or more cars."

Cause or effect? If you own 4 cars, you presumably have to live out in the country?

I live in South Bucks and we have 4 cars in the household, but then again we have much more than that average 2.36 people per house too!
6 people (and an unborn baby) living in the house.
Cars really are needed in South Bucks though, because the public transport here is DIRE!

lostinrates

Fascinating reading Generali.

Incidently, looking at the question the other way round occasionally I tick the 'character poperty' option on rightmove just to see and I find that very confusing as most of it is quite characterless.

moanymoany

Where I was before there was a family with four cars - two adults and two adult(ish) children.

Opposite where I am no there is a family with three cars - mum and two adult children.

We used to live on this estate thirty years ago when it was first built. Then there was one car per household - even those with adult children. When I walk round now I would say less than a third have one car.

There is a secondary school nearby and when one walks or drives round at chucking out time there are dozens of cars picking up their kids. Have to say some of them look as though the walk would do them good!

When I was a lass (yawn :rolleyes2 ) we had to use a combination of walking and bus or bike - rain or shine, snow (colder winters in those days) or ice. We were nice and thin - I don't think about the chilblains and colds we had!

WTF?_2

Car parking is a real problem.

Where I live used to be a pretty poor area where no-one owned cars. Hence a maze of narrow streets.

Now, there must be close to two cars per house on average.

The result is that most people have to park half on the pavement, you can end up parking a long way away from where you live and people are parked right up to the (many) street corners, obscuring the view of people pulling out or turning.

Not to mention there are plenty of bust wingmirrors from cars passing too close.

It doesn't help with the parking that many people living in these modest FTB type 2-up 2-down terraces are driving big luxury saloons and 4x4s either. But given that the average price of houses in the area was close to 200k just over a year ago, I suppose it makes sense that people who could 'afford' to buy such houses at such prices would be driving flash cars too.

Or they had bought the houses when they were cheaper and had MEWed for them, of course :eek: All I can say is that there's veritable forest of for-sale and to-let signs in the area now .. many for-sales around 1 year old....