Action on Rabbit Hutches?

chucknorris

N1AK wrote: »

Wow. All that effort and you still managed to come up with nothing useful or insightful

You may as well just go the whole hog and say "if you don't like the houses here then why not move to North Korea!?!?!".

I arrived at a different conclusion and bought a larger house around the corner rather than in North Korea. Good luck though, I think you might need it and I'm not just talking about learning the language.

chucknorris

chucky wrote: »

That doesn't make sense Chuck.

I should be entitled to buy the house that I want, in the area that I want, with every room being extra large and a front and back garden. It doesn't matter what I earn, house prices are too high. They should drop so I can afford them.

If you want to buy in the bear's magical land of 'Round my way' you could wait for a house price crash that coincides with full employment and rising wages. Apparently it usually happens by Xmas, although it was never defined which Xmas.

MacMickster

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

If there is a shortage of affordable housing then the obvious answer is to reduce the size and market very small one/two person basic hutches.
Like those japanese bed-sit hotel rooms.

If you want a ladder then you have to have a bottom rung.

Interesting thread about such homes on the House Buying board at the moment.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4747021

My daughter is looking at purchasing a small flat which is only 24 m2. Does anyone think this is too small for comfortable living? It would be just herself and her boyfriend living there.

Im worried she is making a bad decision.

Lounge 14ft 6" by 9ft 9"
Bedroom 8ft 4" by 8ft 1" (into recess)
Kitchen 5ft 6" by 7ft 2"
The shower room im guessing is about 7ft by 6ft

It a nice little flat, as its got its own front door, and a private patio approached from the lounge via french doors .. Its such a shame its so small.

There has actually been a middle aged couple living there for the last 15 years!

Tancred

martinsurrey wrote: »

the original foot of the 1880 house I am living in was 50 Sqm (4 rooms of 3.6mX3.6m) , but a bit extra for an outside toilet, this was a 2 up 2 down cottage (its had a few extensions since though!)

RIBA's current recommendations for a 2 bed house is 83 sq m

so its not as if UK houses are suddenly 'undersized'!

I see a lot of 2 bed houses at 70-75 sqm. The 3 bed house I'm buying is 93 sqm - it's OK, but I may have to build a conservatory to create a dining room, as it only has a kitchen-diner.

Tancred

chucknorris wrote: »

I think I have solved the 'rabbit hutch problem' after days of analysis and strategy forming sessions I have listed the methods one should adopt to solve this problem below:

1. Don't buy a house that is too small for you.

And if the home that is the right size for you is unaffordable? What then?

Loughton_Monkey

Tancred wrote: »

And if the home that is the right size for you is unaffordable? What then?

...er...

Save up for it?

chucknorris

Tancred wrote: »

And if the home that is the right size for you is unaffordable? What then?

Then you can't buy it, can you?

Either compromise on size, continue to rent and save or compromise on the area (but I wouldn't recommend North Korea :rotfl:) or the condition (i.e. buy a house in need of refurbishment).

thescouselander

CLAPTON wrote: »

intended purpose?

by whom?

by you or the purchaser?

Both. I am a purchaser as I have just bought a bigger place and in the process of looking we did investigate a number of new developments. Considering we were looking for an upgrade from our current 3 bed terrace we were extremely disappointed at what an extra £100k got us in terms of a new house. We'd have ended up with only the same internal space and less space outside. In the end we got a good 4 bed detached (with proper bedrooms) in an excellent state of repair for the same price as what a tiny 3 bed semi new build in a similar area would have cost.

N1AK

Loughton_Monkey wrote:

Now I just know what you're thinking. You're going to try hard to weasel you way out by saying that 'your' 25% [in your totally and utterly unrealistic example] was capital cost only, and if you add interest it's more like 35/40% of income for average joe...... but that's irrelevant, because that whole post is nonsense anyway.

I was very close to writing a similar counter-argument but as far as I can tell the posts Graham was responding to were referring to a house prices equivalent to 25% of total lifetime earnings. In which case he has no need to weasel his way out because he's never claimed otherwise.

I stopped because I don't think anyone really understood what they were referring to. Based on an average income of £23k, 2.5% inflation and working from 21 to 68 a house worth 25% of lifetime earnings would be £523k. Clearly someone earning £23k isn't going to get a mortgage that big straight away.

Now I'm not sure but I don't think many people would be overly against the idea of a decent family house costing 25% of lifetime (net) income for a single average earner. I'd prefer it was a little lower and I think what a decent family house is defined as would vary depending on who you ask though.

Cornucopia

thescouselander wrote: »

You'd have to be nuts to buy a new build. We've been looking at new builds from a whole range of developers for a while now and none of them are a practical proposition for living in.

I have a new build house. I'm in the process of letting it, partly because it's too big.

The bedrooms tend to be too small to hold a bed and furniture.

All but the smallest bedroom are fine. The largest one has two large fitted wardrobes and extra-tall ceilings.

There's seldom anywhere to keep things like hoovers and ironing boards etc and there's never enough space in the kitchen for the full set of white goods (fridge/freezer, washing machine, dish washer and dryer).

Mine came with all the appliances built-in.

The outside space is even worse with miniscule gardens and nowhere to keep the many recycling bins the council issue these days.

Mine's been built with a bin store big enough for 3 full-size wheelie bins (we only have two).

Also the road space out side is so narrow that just one van or 4x4 will block the whole road (which is inevitable since most plots only come with one parking space).

I can choose between parking at the front of my house, or using the garage or the covered parking space at the back.

Not all new-builds are equal, it would seem.