Britian has the smallest size in new build home

moremore

It appear from the link below that UK has the smallest new build homes in Western Europe. Is this the sign of the times we live in.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/cramped-uk-homes-are-smallest-in-western-europe-095934100.html

Heliflyguy

No its a sign from 1980 when the Parker Morris standards were abolished and by 1990 every builder realised they could make much more money building much smaller houses, smaller even than Japan.

martinsurrey

Heliflyguy wrote: »

No its a sign from 1980 when the Parker Morris standards were abolished and by 1990 every builder realised they could make much more money building much smaller houses, smaller even than Japan.

and every land owner realised they could screw developers for the highest development land prices in Europe.

Add to that one of the most restrictive set of planning and building control standards in Europe and this leads to the highest developable land cost in Europe (farm land is £9k an acre in the south, add planning permission for houses and this rises to over £2.5m, making a very rich landowner/farmer, more so than the developer).

In parts of Belgium the council plan roads on land they own, and then sell plots to people to built whatever they want (so free reign design wise).

This would never work here as planning is so tight that full plans are needed to get permission to build the roads, and the planning process is too complex and restrictive for most people to do alone on each plot.

It’s crazy that its cheaper and easier (most of the time) to buy a house, knock it down and build a new house than it is to find a building plot in the UK, this lack of building plots causes the crammed developments you see.

moremore

According to this it is not the farmers that owns the most land in UK.

http://www.caledonia.org.uk/land/documents/Who%20Does%20Own%20Britain%20Today.pdf

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/03/queen-state-territories

tim123456789

This is not my experience of travelling around Europe for work

I regularly see apartments of 25 sqm that are intended to be lived in as "homes".

Sorry, but I think that this report is guilty of selective sampling

tim

consumers_revenge

For comparison...

Mines ex council and the housing association that took the homes over want to knock down mine and next door and replace with FIVE houses......

Im keeping mine thanks :-)

geoffky

I went into a five bed new build the other day..
I really did burst out laughing..
I could nearly touch both walls in the reception rooms and it had a downstairs toilet with a dolls house size wash basin..The kitchen was a pokey little room with a tiny utility room...£350k...oh, how i laughed.
Never in a million years would i live in one...

martinsurrey

moremore wrote: »

According to this it is not the farmers that owns the most land in UK.

http://www.caledonia.org.uk/land/documents/Who%20Does%20Own%20Britain%20Today.pdf

Breaking that table down

Government - 9% (6% of which are forests, most of the rest are MOD land)
Coal and rail hospitals etc – 2%
Utilities and other common land – 8%
Old school owners (crown, university and “toff estates”) - 32%
Owner occupiers and farms – 47%

So yes most of the UK is in the hands of farms and houses, they represent 50% more land than the next biggest group.

And a lot of the land held in the large estates is in the middle of nowhere (think “Monarch of the Glen” type estates), so is not as developable as a lot of the owner occupied farm land, which tends to be on the outskirts of towns.

So while you are right that a lot of land is in large estates, a lot of the sales of farm land go to “small” farms, but a small farm is classed as one under 500 acres (so not that small), which at £2.5m an acre is £1.25billion (not that one farmer would ever get planning for a 500 acre residential site!), but you see my point.

And people have the idea of a farmer as a grey haired old man on a tractor with his dog tending a few cows and a few fields.

Although these do exist they are swamped by modern conglomerate farmers who buy up these smaller farms and use economies of scale to really make money, these are the guys who make the mega cash from land sales.

brit1234

Its not just the small size but also the cheapest and weakest materials. Many councils won't touch new builds as their quality is not up to scratch.

Makes you laugh why they are the most over priced. Yet there are no end of suckers who go for them under schemes such as New Buy. People need to do their research and not just fall for the 5% deposit.

newbian

brit1234 wrote: »

Its not just the small size but also the cheapest and weakest materials. Many councils won't touch new builds as their quality is not up to scratch.

Makes you laugh why they are the most over priced. Yet there are no end of suckers who go for them under schemes such as New Buy. People need to do their research and not just fall for the 5% deposit.

I think the issues are

A) there is not enough affordable housing in this country
rents in my area (SE/London) are out of control and continue to rise
C) population growth is set to continue

People need to live somewhere, so it's not being a "sucker" as much as accepting reality and taking the best available option. What needs to happen is that new builds should improve in quality. I'm not sure what your position is other than "new builds are terrible" but surely you acknowledge that more housing is required in this country.

Having said that, I have bought a 3 bed new build that well exceeds the RIBA standards (110+ sq m, their level is 88 sq m). Compared to the country I grew up in British buyers seem a lot more focused on number of bedrooms rather than square footage. Back home the headline figure for any house after price is area. British buyers will pay over the odds for a 4 bedroom detached even if the inside area is smaller than a 3 bed terrace. That's why the builders do this and get away with it.

thedalmeny

I've just purchased a new build home (Move in August).

It's a 4 bedroom detached 2-storey property, for myself, my wife and my 3 and a half year old son.

It's 17% larger than the standards supported by the RIBA for a 4 bedroom home supporting 5 people.