What did you invest in instead?
Mortgage Rate Rises
- Thread starter glenimp617
- Start date
The new estate I'm on seems to be having an issue selling now. The townhouses next door have gone from £570 down to £550 and no movement, they even included free flooring. Bigger townhouses reduced from £625 down to £600.
I'm really wondering if they'll bother to build on the entire site since nothing much sells, except perhaps the social housing portion of properties.
I'm really wondering if they'll bother to build on the entire site since nothing much sells, except perhaps the social housing portion of properties.
Soldato
Townhouses, I'm thinking modern three storey terraced, have never floated my boat. Big houses on tiny plots not seeing much sun. Garages if any are integrated on the ground floor or in a seperate block, the front 'garden' is often a parking space. Interior layout frequently is a compromise as well.
I guess I am making assumptions but having viewed many of them, the above points are valid in plenty of cases.
Have my fixed rate coming to an end in October and January. Got about 150 on the October and 100 on the January.
Thinking of paying off the October in cash, as it doesn't seem rates are going to come down this year.
Then will put the 100 on a 5yr term and fixed.
Will be pretty much drained of savings after that, however lower expenses more saving per month is my thoughts. Anyone think of a better idea
Thinking of paying off the October in cash, as it doesn't seem rates are going to come down this year.
Then will put the 100 on a 5yr term and fixed.
Will be pretty much drained of savings after that, however lower expenses more saving per month is my thoughts. Anyone think of a better idea
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Basically a stack of box rooms these days. Pretty horrible.
On these rabbit warren estates with tiny narrow winding roads with everyone parking half on the pavement making it a nightmare to drive to your house.
Soldato
Yeah, the Victorian terraced rows and other old estates are all so much better for road space and parking.
I do agree with townhouses or any houses that are built over 3 floors (seems to be a lot of 5+ bedroom houses now being built where at least 1 bedroom is now on the 2nd floor to keep footprint down whilst upping room count).
Horrible things to live with daily I'll bet albeit narrow townhouses are the worst IMO.
Yeah, the Victorian terraced rows and other old estates are all so much better for road space and parking.
Well yes, but they have the excuse that they didn't have cars when they were built!
Soldato
Building 3 story houses was the fine thing 100 years ago we then stopped in the 30’s when the in thing was 2.5 bedroom semi’s on massive plots which then slowly shrunk over the following 80 years. Extra bedrooms on a third floor are a good idea building houses with undersized rooms on tiny plots with crappy road layouts isn’t!Yeah, the Victorian terraced rows and other old estates are all so much better for road space and parking.
I do agree with townhouses or any houses that are built over 3 floors (seems to be a lot of 5+ bedroom houses now being built where at least 1 bedroom is now on the 2nd floor to keep footprint down whilst upping room count).
Horrible things to live with daily I'll bet albeit narrow townhouses are the worst IMO.
Soldato
But you end up with bedrooms on the 3rd floor still within tiny plots so I'm not sure if that's a good idea at all
Soldato
We moved from a rented three storey town house (built in 2003) to a 1961 semi detached house. Both are three bedroomed, the more modern one had an ensuite on the 2nd floor, the semi has only one bathroom. In general the older property has better proportioned rooms although the bedrooms are by no means large. It does however have a much better plot with a back garden 14m x 10m and a front of about half that size. As we are older, flights of stairs are not good and if one of us loses the faculty of movement, living on one level is best but two is certainly better than three.
Soldato
The tiny plots thing is the problem! Standards for new builds in this country are awful, minimum room sizes, plot sizes even stupid things like we still build brand new houses that don’t have a grey water system so we flush thousands of gallons of drinking standard water a year down the loo! Good size 3 story houses on good plots are not a problem and weren’t when the Victorian’s were building them all over the country.But you end up with bedrooms on the 3rd floor still within tiny plots so I'm not sure if that's a good idea at all
Soldato
Modern town houses I agree are rubbish the ground floor that is 50% a garage that is too small for a modern car and tiny rooms crammed in to tick a box. Good size houses on decent sized plots the two v’s three story debate becomes non existent.
Soldato
Not just to you but thought it easier to ask from a quoted post.
What would people consider to be a good size house on a decent plot for:
3 bed semi
4 bed detached
6 bed detached?
I use these as they seem to be the most popular choice of homes.
In sqft for home and then sqft for garden or outside area (not including home) e.g.
3 bed semi - 800sqft home with 100sqft garden?
Soldato
I've been to Poland four times now (Krakow, Sanok, Poznan and Lublin) and you should see the houses there.
In the cities, it's all apartments. But they are spacious, modern, well appointed, with parking built under the apartment block, and with greenery and kids play areas built alongside the units. Honestly compared to our apartment blocks, it's night and day.
As soon as you move out of the city, it's houses. a lot follow the same style, detached, squarish footprint, on their own squarish plots with land around all sides. Basement at ground level or just below with garage, steps up to level 1 which has kitchen, and a couple of living rooms, stairs up to level 2 which houses bedrooms etc, and stairs up to loft space. Many houses have both gas fired and wood fired boilers, and you'll see stacks of drying wood piled in sheds and around the boundary of all the houses.
The houses are dotted around the landscape spaciously, there is no cramping together of houses into restrictive 'developments'.
Examples:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
maps.app.goo.gl
In the UK how many back to back houses still exist? Pretty much none, they've been knocked down as they were unfit. Why don't we do the same with terraced runs with no parking, or un-insulatable solid wall housing? We should be modernising our housing stock and making it better, more comfortable, more spacious - we are doing the opposite.
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Soldato
The amount of housing you plan to destroy is vast you are talking knocking down every pre 1950’s house in the country! Would be easier and cheaper to improve public transport and tax multiple car ownership off the road.I've been to Poland four times now (Krakow, Sanok, Poznan and Lublin) and you should see the houses there.
In the cities, it's all apartments. But they are spacious, modern, well appointed, with parking built under the apartment block, and with greenery and kids play areas built alongside the units. Honestly compared to our apartment blocks, it's night and day.
As soon as you move out of the city, it's houses. a lot follow the same style, detached, squarish footprint, on their own squarish plots with land around all sides. Basement at ground level or just below with garage, steps up to level 1 which has kitchen, and a couple of living rooms, stairs up to level 2 which houses bedrooms etc, and stairs up to loft space. Many houses have both gas fired and wood fired boilers, and you'll see stacks of drying wood piled in sheds and around the boundary of all the houses.
The houses are dotted around the landscape spaciously, there is no cramping together of houses into restrictive 'developments'.
Examples:
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
In the UK how many back to back houses still exist? Pretty much none, they've been knocked down as they were unfit. Why don't we do the same with terraced runs with no parking, or un-insulatable solid wall housing? We should be modernising our housing stock and making it better, more comfortable, more spacious - we are doing the opposite.
Soldato
If you are building a new home these days it needs a fourth bedroom/home office again should be mandated by building regs. Along with grey water, solar with batteries etc etc
Soldato
If we had sustainable long term thinking in this country then we'd be doing that on a rolling basis not all at once.
Just thinking conceptually another 200-300 years into the future, do you think 150 year old Victorian terraces, or nearly 100 year old 1930's semi's will still be standing, and if they are, at what cost will that have come to rebuild chunks of deteriorating crumbling brickwork?
At some point, we are going have an absolute boatload of rebuilding work to do which will come at massive cost to homeowners. Look how many houses you see now that could do with new roofs yet most people can't afford to make that significant of a rebuild. What happens when we need to start rebuilding walls!
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Soldato
I agree there is a challenge but urban clearance of middle class neighbourhoods is going to go down like a lead balloon! Clearing the slums and demolition the back to back housing wasn’t popular with the residents and they didn’t represent such a huge and influential chunk of the electorate. Realistically if we’ll maintained there is no reason the majority of Victorian housing couldn’t survive another couple of hundred years doesn’t help that problem if them being environmentally rubbish though!
We are pretty rubbish at urban planning in this country the difficulty getting permission to build pretty much anything makes long term planning and regeneration next to impossible!
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