New Housing Estates -

There is plenty of land to build on, and to make housing developments attractive, with some open spaces and trees. But, as has been said, developers want to make excessive amounts of money and it pays to cram as many homes into the smallest space possible.

Cramming families into small homes is very bad for mental health and must affect motivation and morale for adults and children. Kitchens and sitting rooms in flats in even the quite expensive flats are often combined and there is very little room for children to study or adults to work, if they work from home. There also appears to be a lack of storage space in most new homes, especially flats. Balconies are therefore used to dry washing and store stuff that cannot be contained within the body of the home.

This is the headline from This is Money, December 2015:
"Rise of the 'rabbit hutch' homes: Half of new-build three-bed properties are too small for families, architects warn - and Yorkshire has the pokiest"

I agree grannysyb. That and grey water recycling where rainwater is kept in an underground tank and used for toilet flushing and watering the garden.

One thing that always makes me wonder - just whose house can you fit the new sofas that are currently advertised everywhere?
Certainly not many new builds!
I also have a gripe about the lack of parking spaces provided by developers - in Aus each house must have minimum space to park 2 cars and when a friend was looking at a new house, and commented on the size of the outside space provided , that it was rather small for a family home and she was told by the agent that large gardens were "not fashionable!"

My new-build semi has a huge kitchen/dining room; a large living room that fits a two-seater, a three-seater and a very large armchair, as well as a large TV and several coffee tables.

My bedroom fits my super-king bed with space to spare. And there are two other double bedrooms.

Not all new-builds are skimped.

We looked at a new house on an expensive estate about twenty years ago, and couldn't believe how tiny the rooms were; clever use of mirrors, two seater sofas and smaller armchairs made it seem far more spacious than it was. The final straw was looking out onto the garden. We initially thought it wasn't overlarge but not a bad size for a new property - only to realise that it was communal, and shared with two other houses.

As mentioned above, we are moving soon to a ground floor flat and it hadn’t even occurred to me that I should feel any shame![hmmm] I’ve fallen down the outside steps down to the front door once, banging my head on the way.

When I was very unwell in December I stood at the bottom of the stairs and really struggled with the idea of getting back to my bed! I’m much better now but it did bring home to us that it is better to move now than to wait until one of us is seriously incapacitated and, like a neighbour who had a heart attack and then was trapped in the house.

We were amazed at how tiny the accommodation was in some of the flats and bungalows we viewed. Barely room for two armchairs and a coffee table.

Blocks of offices near town are being converted into flats so it will be interesting to see how quickly they are occupied.

Detached bungalows here are often demolished and very much larger multi family occupied houses are built instead. Largely done by the Asian community but the young women often insist on their own kitchen rather than a large shared communal one.

The property/properties are then surrounded by high iron fences and gates. The children can then play out and the family doesn’t have to get involved with any unknown neighbours. They have told us that they prefer to avoid bank loans and mortgages by building in stages when they’ve pooled enough money. Sometimes takes years but preferable to debt with outside sources.

grannysyb

We have had to gi up to Northamptonshire a lot recently, loads of houses being built round Desborough and Wellingborough, why don't these new houses have solar panels, I think it should be mandatory in new builds.

Some new houses are built with Photovoltaic cell roof tiles, which you wouldn’t necessarily notice as they are the size of the roof tile.

I completely agree with OP I went to see a three bedroom semi once which wasn’t cheap and me and hubby couldn’t fit in the kitchen together if I was cooking, and your view from the kitchen window were the red brick walls of another house
Agree that these building companies are very greedy

We have had to gi up to Northamptonshire a lot recently, loads of houses being built round Desborough and Wellingborough, why don't these new houses have solar panels, I think it should be mandatory in new builds.

Kiwigramz

I agree with you completely. We all need a certain amount of space. Some estates don’t even have separate gardens any more. You can choose friends but not neighbours.

Seems quite common in some American properties. Large family houses with communal grounds. Good for the children wanting to play out and presumably no grass to cut every other weekend. Great if all the neighbours can cooperate and agree but could foresee problems if they had a few moaning Minnies. Presumably you wouldn’t buy this kind of property if you wanted exclusive use of a garden or yard.

We’ve obviously been watching too many episodes of the Property Brothers over lockdown!

We are about to discover for ourselves! We should be moving soon to a ground floor flat where the grass is cut by contractors but the flower beds etc maintained by the owners (nearly put inmates!). Freudian slip!

Aot of new estates seem to be just thrown up in the middle of nowhere. Promised shopping centres, schools etc often fail to materialise and residents are totally car dependent.

It makes it very difficult to build up a proper community spirit, and many of these estates can be quite soulless places to live in.

It is also the space to move around in, not just to eat, sleep and sit passively in front of the TV. Older people are less likely to want to go outside to walk around in bad weather when they could slip on ice or have to fight against the wind, so are restricted to their own four walls for winter exercise. They need to be able to step out enough to make them breathe more deeply. In a home with only a few rooms, and those very cramped, there is no space to walk freely around without being careful not to bump into furniture or trip on things.

The new builds are a way of the Gov giving money back to it's donors by increasing their profits. DD1 and SIL had a substantial deposit thanks to his father. They applied for the gov scheme that matches the savings of first time buyers but they didn't qualify because it's only available to first time buyers who are buying new builds. They didn't buy a new build but you can understand why first time buyers do if they can afford it as the savings matching can be a substantial amount.

It’s not just the number of rooms, it’s the size.

When OH and I decided to move in together we went looking at bungalows. Honestly he stood in one living room and he filled it upI When he spread his arms he could almost touch wall to wall. Likewise the bedrooms.

In the end we bought a four bed. It’s just about big enough for all we want to do.

And a utility room, please, why is it assumed laundry should be done in the kitchen?
It's also a place for wet macs, muddy shoes, DH's tool kit, general clutter etc
Perhaps old people are supposed to lead very neat lives.

We do need 3 bedrooms, as we have family overseas who we hope will be able to visit when the pandemic is over.

A friend and her husband with family in Ameruca moved from a large 4 bedroomed detached house to a 2 bedroomed bungalow with just sitting room and kitchen and said she hated it and it was difficult when family visited. A step too far.

But do older people necessarily want 2 bedroomed homes? Quite a number of my friends have downsized, but more to reduce the size of the garden than reduce the size of the house.

Many older people do not have their family living nearby and need at least three bedrooms to accommodate them when they visit, many want a craftroom or study.

I really do not understand why it is always assumed that older people with more than 2 bedrooms want snd ought to downsize to these 2 bedroomed identikit properties.

Many younger single people and childless couples are buying properties with more than 2 bedrooms, nobody questions why they are living in houses with unoccupied and surplus bedrooms. Even if an older person did sell their family house, there is no guarantee it will be bought by a family. It may well be bought by a similar household of one or two people but 30 or 40 years younger.

Why are older people castigated for wanting more than 2 bedrooms? Why is it assumed that we 'rattle round' in family homes after the family have left, rather than expanding to use all of it ourselves?

We retired to a large 4 bedroomed house, we may move on sometime to get a smaller garden, but not a smaller house.
It is time we started thinking outside the stereotypical housing box that all older people are shoved into and begin to realise that a 2 bedroomed flat or bungalow does not fit all, or even the majority.

There is no shortage of new 2 bedroom homes being built for sale, so downsizing from a larger family home is easy. However the financial cost and personal changes make it unattractive, in any case a 2 story house is not ideal for an older couple.
Bungalows are more expensive because of a larger plot area, so selling an older 3 bed house that needs modernization paying expenses and taxes to buy a smaller bungalow might not be possible.

Calendargirl I think older people do need large rooms, at least larger than usually provided. As people get older and are more housebound they need more space to move around in, especially if they need a walking frame. Many have craft and other hobbies that need space. Even things like knitting need space for knitting wool, patterns and needles, plus work in progress.

So many bungalows and flats for older people assume you live off ready meals and do nothing all day but watch tv - you certainly do not have visitors either - there is no space.

There are never any bungalows built now anywhere

We have had a new development on the outskirts of our town, all bungalows I think. But oh, extremely small, I know a single person or even a couple don’t need huge rooms, but these are tiny.

I agree there needs to be more smaller properties for social housing. I’m thinking of what used to be council houses, three bedrooms, now with just one elderly widow/widower living there, which could be allocated to a family if only there were more properties for the original tenant to move to.

mokryna Most houses in the UK are freehold. There has been a scandal recently because some developers were selling houses leasehold with escalating ground rents, but that is now being dealt with.

With flats it does vary. With house conversions into flats, the flat owners often own the freehold through a managment company where each flat owner has an equal share. Both my MiL and my sister owned flats that worked on that basis, while DS lived in a development where a developer collected the ground rent that could not be increased, but the management company was run by the flat owners.

In the past, in the UK, there was a prejudice against flats, but since the 1980s so many flats have been built that little of that prejudice still remains. However most of them are quite small and aimed at the first time buyer. You do get much larger flats in areas popular with older people, like along the coast, but these are not retirement developments

The problem with flats built specifically for older people in the UK is that they are so small, when up thread I compared them with rabbit hutches, it was for that reason. I used to volunteer with a charity for older people and visited a lot of people in such flats, and I was really horrified how small they were.

In France thing seem to be different. When we bought our French home the previous owner moved into a rented retirement flat owned by the local council. We visited her there and you could have got the whole of a McCarthy & Stone flat into the living room, and another into the bedroom and kitchen. It also had a small garden, much of the size you get with a small new build in the UK.

The rules for new-builds have improved in terms of insulation (both sound and heat) - they are not the tinny boxes that were once built.

The new estates built near me are lovely, much nicer than the estates built in the 1960’s, and are thoughtfully laid out and with green spaces.True, they have small gardens, but many people don’t have time to look after large plots when working and with a family.
Of course developers / builders want to make money, they aren’t a charity.
I like an older house with more garden but not everybody does.

The problem as I see it in the UK, is the system of leasehold with flats and houses and brown land sites. I agree children need space but I bought up 3 with a balcony and a garden down below to play, in low rise flats. But of course it is not the same in the center of town with covid as my daughter did in lockdown with her 3 and no balcony.
I am thinking on downsizing adults, it’s a change in mindset.
In France it is not thought as a shame to live in a flat, Here we buy freehold and at the point of sale an agreement with a voted in management company, which can be vote out each year by the owners of the flats if they are not happy with the way things have been run over the last year. My block is very small and we run things ourselves. In any block of flats the owner pays for the up keep of the flats including roof, garden and insurance considering how many mètres they have percentage of the whole building. The flats go up in price as the market demands, there is no degrading leasehold.
Property is sold by mètres not by how many bedrooms therefore is easier to compare what you are paying for. You can see on paper whether a cat can be swung or not.

I live near the town which has more sheltered housing schemes than anything else and the prices go up to well over half a million - there are also a couple of new estates, but why do planners not think about parking? They will sell a four bedroom house with one space! In that house there could be a couple of adults that drive, and 3 teenagers with cars! The whole place is covered with on street parked cars, it's ridiculous!