Rabbit Hutch Britain

Afriend_2

House builder heralds the end of rabbit hutch Britain

The begginings of a new trend to build family homes or simply a one-off?

www.
citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/markets-companies-and-funds/content.aspx?ID=356836

House builder Redrow is shifting its focus back to building family homes and away from city centre blocks.
The group remains confident about its outlook despite reporting a full year pre-tax loss from trading operations before exceptionals of £44.2 million, down from a £65.5 million profit the year before.
Steve Morgan who returned to the company as chairman earlier this year said the group's original business model been focused on building family homes and that is where his expertise is - which is fortunate since he believes increasing numbers of people are looking to invest in this type of property.

'People are saying they want a back garden and a front garden and a place to park their car near their home. For the most part planners are happy to go with that.'

Redrow said local government planners are increasingly aware that the earlier focus on city centre developments was a mistake and are mostly backing the return to family homes.

'People blamed us for building little boxes but we were led by the planners,' he said.

mewbie_2

This is total rubbish. I was driving through a new build area today (got lost). Thousands of identikit houses (well four different designs, each placed at slighly different angles giving an impression of space, and trying not to look like some 60's vision of a communist housing estate. But essentially the same. No shops, no pubs, no play areas, no social clubs - just houses. And more houses. Now everyone knows that these are designed to maximum the return from the land for the builder, so the houses are smaller than they seem and the plots are minimised. Check out the furniture in a show house - it's slightly smaller than real stuff. And look at bedroom number 2 - oh yes a bed fits in but where do you keep clothes?

Rabbit hutches indeeed.

And another thing. These pride and joys - for people willinn to stump up tens of thousands deposit, and a huge never ending mortgage - these pride and joys are no better than council housing used to be. Just a council estate that you have to buy into.

I'll stop now, just needed a rant.

olly300

They are still building one and two bed "luxury apartments" in blocks over 4 storeys near where I live with not enough parking so the report is bolloxks.

The problem with the new developments compared to what I live in, and the listed and unlisted blocks of flats near me is that they are definitely not for people to live long term in.

They don't have flats with more than 2 bedrooms, they have no gardens, the balconies are too small, the blocks are too tall and they don't leave another ground around the block for greenery let alone not build such a large block that are enough parking spaces for the people who want a car.

mizzbiz

mewbie wrote: »

This is total rubbish. I was driving through a new build area today (got lost). Thousands of identikit houses (well four different designs, each placed at slighly different angles giving an impression of space, and trying not to look like some 60's vision of a communist housing estate. But essentially the same. No shops, no pubs, no play areas, no social clubs - just houses. And more houses. Now everyone knows that these are designed to maximum the return from the land for the builder, so the houses are smaller than they seem and the plots are minimised. Check out the furniture in a show house - it's slightly smaller than real stuff. And look at bedroom number 2 - oh yes a bed fits in but where do you keep clothes?

Rabbit hutches indeeed.

And another thing. These pride and joys - for people willinn to stump up tens of thousands deposit, and a huge never ending mortgage - these pride and joys are no better than council housing used to be. Just a council estate that you have to buy into.

I'll stop now, just needed a rant.

Except many council houses from the 50's were quite big, with huge gardens and adequate room sizes.

New build 'family' homes are tiny. Those 5 bedroomed double fronted ones are smaller than your average 1901 terraced house.

Jim_B_3

mewbie wrote: »

These pride and joys - for people willinn to stump up tens of thousands deposit, and a huge never ending mortgage - these pride and joys are no better than council housing used to be. Just a council estate that you have to buy into.

Frequently worse. Housing associations have turned down some newbuilds, essentially because they're not fit for people to live in.

PasturesNew

I was really tempted by a new build the other day .... there was nothing near it though. I'd have to take the car out for everything. But I wasn't there for me, I was assisting another in choices. I think they're going for it. Rooms smaller than a 2nd hand house, no garage, less garden .... but less maintenance/hassle etc.

What I pointed out to them was:
- move straight in

Hang on, bit stuck now ....

No, that was it come to think of it.

Ah, I remember now:
- the other phase is across the road and so you might be looking at that forever
- living on a building site if/when they start the next phase
- instantly losing "value" so I hope they're planning on being there at least 5-10 years this time because there's no getting out at the same price for some time to come

Apart from that, I let them enjoy their house hunting and decisions

Pobby

mewbie wrote: »

This is total rubbish. I was driving through a new build area today (got lost). Thousands of identikit houses (well four different designs, each placed at slighly different angles giving an impression of space, and trying not to look like some 60's vision of a communist housing estate. But essentially the same. No shops, no pubs, no play areas, no social clubs - just houses. And more houses. Now everyone knows that these are designed to maximum the return from the land for the builder, so the houses are smaller than they seem and the plots are minimised. Check out the furniture in a show house - it's slightly smaller than real stuff. And look at bedroom number 2 - oh yes a bed fits in but where do you keep clothes?

Rabbit hutches indeeed.

And another thing. These pride and joys - for people willinn to stump up tens of thousands deposit, and a huge never ending mortgage - these pride and joys are no better than council housing used to be. Just a council estate that you have to buy into.

I'll stop now, just needed a rant.

Agree with the last point. My 21 year old nephew ahs bought with his 20 year old girl friend @ £195k in the South East. It`s not big. They had £20k to put down and now have a £1,000 a month mortgage for 40 years. Wow, that`s just short of half a million pounds!

BitterAndTwisted

There's a private housing development which my local authority flat overlooks. A neighbour and I went over to have a nosey at the show flat and one of the houses and I was aghast at the size of the rooms. The front door opened right into the living/dining/kitchen area and there wasn't a wall long enough to put a three-seater sofa in the "four bedroomed" house. One of the bedrooms was so small only a crib would have fitted in it with no space for anything else. Only one bedroom had a fitted wardrobe/closet and I couldn't see how the other two bedrooms had space for one. The door to the bathroom/lav only cleared the lavatory pan by half an inch.

In the show-flat the kitchen counters were much shallower than anything I had ever seen before and there was nowhere in the kitchen to store an ironing board or a vacuum-cleaner and the ceilings were noticeably lower that in my home. These were doll-houses suitable for only midgets with no possessions and they were asking a fortune for them. Once the buyers moved in and tried to unpack, I'm sure a lot of people realised how conned they were.

bo_drinker

Pobby wrote: »

Agree with the last point. My 21 year old nephew ahs bought with his 20 year old girl friend @ £195k in the South East. It`s not big. They had £20k to put down and now have a £1,000 a month mortgage for 40 years. Wow, that`s just short of half a million pounds!

Ah yes but bricks and mortar is where to put your money........... isn't it

mewbie_2

bo_drinker wrote: »

Ah yes but bricks and mortar is where to put your money........... isn't it

195k is a lot of bricks and mortar.

baileysbattlebus

mewbie wrote: »

This is total rubbish. I was driving through a new build area today (got lost). Thousands of identikit houses (well four different designs, each placed at slighly different angles giving an impression of space, and trying not to look like some 60's vision of a communist housing estate. But essentially the same. No shops, no pubs, no play areas, no social clubs - just houses. And more houses. Now everyone knows that these are designed to maximum the return from the land for the builder, so the houses are smaller than they seem and the plots are minimised. Check out the furniture in a show house - it's slightly smaller than real stuff. And look at bedroom number 2 - oh yes a bed fits in but where do you keep clothes?

Rabbit hutches indeeed.

And another thing. These pride and joys - for people willinn to stump up tens of thousands deposit, and a huge never ending mortgage - these pride and joys are no better than council housing used to be. Just a council estate that you have to buy into.

I'll stop now, just needed a rant.

They've been building houses smaller and smaller for years.

When we bought our first house in 1982 - it was a new build (because you needed a smaller deposit), we looked a several - one, the one I wanted to buy - a 3 bed semi built by Wimpey, was lovely. I was already placing our furniture it in my head, when OH said - "wouldn't buy this - it's far too small" - Well it had 3 bedrooms and we had 3 kids - seemed fine to me. Then he pointed out the furniture in the lounge/diner and how small it all was. He was right - our chunky suite wouldn't have fit. And the smallest bedroom would have struggled with a full size single bed.

We did end up with a new build - built by a local builder - the exterior of the house didn't look as nice - but it had 3 proper bedrooms a decent lounge, dining room and kitchen - and it had cupboards - something that seems missing in todays houses.

My daughter's recently divorced friend has just bought a 2 bed house - quite new, it has an ensuite to the main bedroom and the door opens out into the bedroom - she has a king size bed and can't close the bathroom door properly - it catches the end of bed - not good if you like a bit of privacy when you go the loo. The 2nd bedroom is very small - and she had to sell her 2 sofas and buy something smaller when she moved in.

I've taken quite an interest in new builds recently - we are taking early retirement next year and will be moving and downsizing our current house. It seemed like a good idea from the maintenance aspect as much as anything - but I've been quite surprised at how small they are - I started looking at 3 beds and usually thought - I couldn't live in that - we'd be falling over ourselves. Then I started looking at 4 beds - and unless you're buying the more expensive top end properties - they are exactly the same - often with an integral garage - so you have a ground floor the size of a 3 bed - and have 4 beds upstairs. Where is the logic in that? You don't live upstairs.

I did notice quite a lot of them have what I would term a corridor as a living room - with a dining room corridor too - if you weigh more than about 7.5 stones or are bigger than a 10 year old you wouldn't be able to push your chair back without hitting a wall.

I'm still looking though.