Basic types of British houses in 2018

Those who buy a house in the UK will definitely care about the type of their house. So what are the types of houses in the UK? This is a question that many people are concerned about. Let’s learn about the basic types of houses in the UK. Welcome to read.

Basic types of British houses

I have heard this joke a long time ago: the happiest man in the world earns an American salary and lives in a British house. , marry a Japanese wife and have a Chinese cook. The most unfortunate man is to live in a Japanese house with a Chinese salary, marry an American wife, and have a British cook. I have always found this joke very vivid, especially after living in the UK for more than four years, I feel that British houses are indeed worthy of the name and extraordinary.

I lived in the UK for four and a half years and moved to five places. I move almost every year, and it always takes a lot of trouble to move, find an apartment, and rent an apartment. So after I started working, I increasingly hoped to have a relatively stable place to live. So I have been paying special attention to the British housing market in the past four months. House prices in the UK have doubled in the past five years and increased 3-5 times in the past 12 years. Although British house prices have not continued to rise due to the downturn in the U.S. housing market since the end of last year, they have definitely not fallen. So looking at the high housing prices really gives me a headache.

This is the first time we talk about houses in the UK, so let’s first talk about the types of houses in the UK and the basic differences between buying a house in China. Let’s talk about the differences first. China’s housing market is basically divided into new and second-hand housing transactions (I haven’t been in China for several years, so this is my impression). Different from China, more than 95% of the British housing market is old houses, with newly built houses accounting for a minority. Unlike the Chinese, there are almost no British locals buying new houses to live in. You may buy a new house for investment and rental, but rarely live in it yourself. Because old British houses are of good quality and have large gardens, if you can buy a Victorian house, it will usually have a large living room with a high roof, making the room feel very open and bright. Therefore, the older the house in the UK, the more valuable it is. There are many good houses from the 17th and 18th centuries that sell for more than one million pounds.

The second difference is that the houses in China are basically the same and look very similar (I once made a joke about not being able to find my own door when I returned to China!). Except for the houses in recent years, for example, the houses in the UK are built by the same house. There will be such situations when developers build houses. Basically, every house has its own characteristics. Relatively speaking, the selectivity is much higher than in China. I used to think that the town I live in now is shabby and underdeveloped, and rich people would definitely not choose to live here. But after I started paying attention to the houses, I discovered that in fact, even the poorest towns would have houses worth over a million dollars. A very high-end house above the pound. For example, there are two roads in our town, Victoria Road (Victoria Street) and St. Thomas Road (St. Thomas Street). Most of the houses here are around half million (500,000 pounds). After walking around those two streets and looking at the quality of the houses there and the cars parked outside, I suddenly realized that there are also rich people in a bad town like Trowbridge! Another big difference between here and China is that Houses are not sold by pounds per square metre. Because each house has its own characteristics, houses are sold here on a house-by-house basis. There are many factors that affect the price of a house, such as age, decoration, living environment, surrounding environment, garden size, internal facilities, size, decoration, etc. A house price is determined based on many factors.

Let’s talk about the basic types of houses in the UK. The first category: Detached House is what is called a detached house in China, with its own garden and garage. As shown below.

The second category: Semi-detached House (I don’t know what it is in Chinese), which means that a house will have two houses, but it will also have its own garage and garden (some are semi-detached) The house may not have a garage, depending on the specific house) as shown below:

The third category: Terrace House, that is, a row of houses like the picture below is called a terrace house, which some people translate as "terrace house". I don't know what Chinese is either. The house in the middle of a row of houses is called a mid-terrace house (that is to say, you will be separated from your neighbors by a wall on both sides), and the house at the end of a row of houses is called an end terrace house, which is only separated from the neighbors by a wall. Most of these houses do not have garages. , the garden is not big either.

The fourth category: bungalow, which is also independent and has its own garden (unless it is a semi-detached bungalow, it will be separated from its neighbors by a wall). The difference between it and Detached House is that it only has one floor.

When the basic conditions are the same, I mean if they are in the same geographical location, on the same street, and the interiors of the houses are not much different, bungalow is the most expensive, followed by detached. semi-detached, terrace. In fact, I have never understood why bungalow is so expensive.

I once asked the British and they couldn't tell me why, but LG once told me that the reason bungalow is more expensive is because for the same living area, it has only one floor and takes up more space than a detached two-story one. The British land ( land) is also very expensive. (In addition, there are two types of house buying in the UK: freehold and leasehold. Freehold means that when you buy a house, you also buy the land it occupies, while leasehold only buys the house, not the land. However, most houses in the UK are Freehold, first-time home buyers should still pay attention to this issue).

The price is basically as mentioned above, but the actual price of buying a house depends largely on the number of bedrooms, bedroom size and decoration, garden size, kitchen size and decoration, so it cannot be said to be detached. It must be more expensive than semi-detached. In other words, terrace ones must be cheaper than detached ones. For example, the 3 bedroom terrace house below is priced at 225,000 pounds, while the detached house with 3 bedrooms is priced at 214,950 pounds, because the interior decoration is different and the bedroom sizes are also different. Because houses in the UK vary so much, there are many factors to consider when buying and viewing a house.

Although the basic categories of houses in the UK are only the above, because almost every house in the UK has its own characteristics, it can meet the needs of different people. Even if you want to buy a castle, it is entirely possible to buy a church and decorate it as your residence. For example, the 4-bedroom detached house below, priced at ￡395,000, was converted from a Methodist Church.

In addition, there is a type of British house called cottage, most of which have a history of more than hundreds of years and are expensive. The picture below is a 4 bedroom detached cottage, priced at ￡645,000. Don’t underestimate the fact that these houses look shabby from the outside, but they are actually wonderful inside.

The picture below is a 3 bedroom semi-detached cottage, priced at ￡399,950.

The other type is council house. In the UK, the government has the responsibility to provide housing (council house) to homeless people and their families and particularly low-income families or individuals. Of course, this government service is aimed at social groups below the poverty line, so the application requirements for such housing are also very strict. Calculated based on GDP in 2005, the per capita income in the UK was 17,867 pounds. If the total income of a family of three is 10,400 pounds, the per capita income is only 3,466 pounds, which is 19% of the British per capita income and less than 2/3 of the median income. They are families below the poverty line. In 2005, the number of people living below the poverty line in the UK accounted for approximately 17% of the total population, approximately 10.27 million people. The British government provides council house services to this group.

For this kind of government relief housing, low-income individuals or families generally apply to the local town government or municipal government (local council), and then they can be arranged to move in after review. The monthly rent is a formality, about 100 pounds a month. If you really can't afford it, you can apply for a reduction or exemption based on the situation.

As far as the situation in the UK is concerned, the security in rural areas is better than that in urban areas, and the security in small and medium-sized towns is also better than that in metropolitan areas. In large cities like London or Manchester, areas with poor security are usually places with Council Houses, and the residents are mainly working class and immigrant minorities. The British government allows residents who live in council houses to buy them at a low price after living there for a certain period of time. The house changes from council to private. Such houses are commonly known as ex-council. When buying an ex-council, you should pay attention to investigate how many houses or council houses are around. If the ratio is high, it means that the proportion of poor people is high and the people are mixed. The investment risk of houses in such areas is relatively high. First, it is unsafe. Second, it will affect future housing prices.

There is also a type of flat (as shown below), which is the most common apartment in China. However, most apartments in the UK are occupied by singles or couples, and it is rare for a British family of four or five to live in a flat. Moreover, most flats are sold on leasehold basis, not freehold, which means they do not own the land on which the house is built. Flats in the UK rarely have high-rise flats like those in China and Hong Kong. There may be high-rise flats in big cities such as London. But in general, flats in cities and towns are on the third to fifth floors.