A question I keep struggling with from estate agents is “uh, why do you WANT an ex-council flat?” that isn’t an incredibly combative “have you seen the rest of the crap you sell and the conditions attached?”
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Gee, I don’t know. Why do I want to live in something from one of the two (two!!) eras in which housebuilding in England showed any ambition or any interest in what the interiors of a place were actually like for residents? Who can say? Who can say.
Relatedly it just blows my mind that “the private sector in the 1930s to the 1970s” and “the state in the 1950s to 1980s” just absolutely nailed good housebuilding and then just went “well, that’s over now”.
You look at the principles that underpinned stuff like the Dawson’s Heights social housing development in Dulwich and you look at what’s being built today and it’s hard not to feel depressed by it
And it was the quality of the council housing that raised the quality of private sector housing in competition. Also, interesting you're responding this way. 15 years ago, ex council housing was described to me as "a separate sub-market" only for FTBs and low income households
And that is clearly still true, in that (and obviously this is a lovely problem to have) the ex-council stuff I see is at the bottom of what we could borrow (assuming successful sale of our current ex-council flat, natch). Which I don’t understand at all, because you’d think enuff FTBs would…
That stigma towards council estates is still there then! We took advantage of it by buying a beautiful penthouse, which was about £400k less than it would be three miles away, because there's a council estate across the road
The weird thing is it is still a bit true in London, in that my flat is not gonna sell for as much as that horrible dismembered one bed flat I retweeted earlier, and the best stuff I’ve seen in our search has been at the lower end of what we could borrow.
Our new place is early 1900s, allegedly, but it feels "good" in a similar way to houses from those eras so we suspect that might be a hedge on behalf of the surveyor.
By-law housing varies a lot from area to area. It's all clever architecturally (if we define clever architecture as the practice of getting the maximum use of space) but whether that works out for the person living in the property is more variable.
Though I'll add that incompetent subdivision by later owners - which is a big issue in London, Bristol, etc. - is not something that can be blamed on the original builders.
My grandparents lived in tenements in the E End, then private rented slum dwellings, and eventually postwar Council flats that were like palaces (1 bed palaces) including Lubetkin & Tecton's Hallfield Estate in Paddington. LCC council estates were thoughtfully designed, well built and affordable
The rental market is equally weird. Estate agent was shocked that I preferred the 2000ish 2 bed I live in to the new development they’re shilling. The rooms in my place are much bigger and it’s £300 a month cheaper. New one does come with a communal bowling alley and podcast studio though 🤦♂️
(Was mildly tempted to go full frank Grimes and live in a single room flat above a bowling alley (and possibly beneath another bowling alley) but my dedication to content only goes so far)
Is ‘communal bowling alley and podcast studio’ just the one room? People exasperatedly trying to record their earnest thoughts on some unbelievably niche topic, while the sound of pins being knocked down and the trundle of the bowling balls ruins yet another audio take…
All countries, undergoing modernisation, have a period of pop and housing growth, and then it stops. It cannot restart. We have reached the end of 'growth'. See from UKs age of reform:
We now are in a post-growth era. Quality matters, and much Victorian stuff needs to be destroyed and replaced. That will only happen slowly. This is a fixed constraint.
O, build quality is the issue of our time. The historic focus on quantity, has detracted from quality. We see the distortions of a market moving from one to the other. As incentives switches the science from build ever cheaper but more, to quality.
In the 90s we rented a fantastic ex-council flat with a balcony overlooking the whole of South London, you could see Gatwick on a clear day. Why we didn't buy it from the bank when we started getting mortgage default notices through the door escapes me to this day.
Does that mean nearly all new houses are housing associations? That’s counterintuitive as social housing is still desperately needed, and yet all new estates you see are built by the Barrett’s of this world
Glad to see that the article (eventually) got around to interest rates. Too often all that is covered are average prices vs average incomes (medians would be more meaningful for both). High interest rates in the 70's had a massive impact on affordability, and low rates then helped drive up prices
One thing anecdotally I’m hearing (it’s been twenty years since I had anything professionally to do with HAs) is that their model of building and leverage is hitting hard limits in sustainable (in financial terms) debt burdens so, um, that’s an issue
Good article but on the final point it misses that property tends to be a leveraged investment in a way that say buying stocks isn’t - ie you don’t just buy £100k worth of house, you put that down as a deposit and buy a house worth £500k. If value doubles you get more than £200k back.
Clearly highlights Atlee’s period of trying to get private housebuilders to meet the needs of the country (1945/46) with nothing happening
46/47 changed direction and commenced a huge state building programme
The country through 50s 60s 70s benefited hugely
Can’t recall who stopped it in 80s
You need a version showing absolute numbers surely
It would show we only built high numbers when a) TCPA didn't exist and free market ruled or b) LAs built tonnes of homes and govt coordinated new towns
My 1930s pebble dashed semi-detached house isn't perfect. But, I love that we have 150ft of back garden and we aren't overlooked by 15 other houses. Also, the roof doesn't creak like mad in storms like the one in our 1990s new build used to.
My first property was a three-bed ex-LA flat. About twice as big, twice as soundproof and twice as well-built as everything else I viewed in the same £ ballpark. Should never, ever have sold it. #idiot
my current flat is ex-council and was built during those decades and I just don't think I can ever go back, the layout makes sense, the walls are thick, everything is well built, it's been like entering a whole universe
The house we have in North Derbyshire is from a period of state coordinated housebuilding around Chesterfield and Sheffield in late 1960s and has miles better build quality than either the 1990s builds we once lived in as students and early career near Oxford or the 1920s build later in Liverpool
Dronfield Woodhouse across the valley is quite interesting in being between built between 1969-1971 as the largest house-building project for the private market in Europe until the late 1980s. The UK really could do proper town-building at that time. Where did all that skill and knowledge go?
It all retired in the Mid-Late 90s and was never replaced. They were a sweet spot of people who were too young to be involved in WW2 but old enough to work during the war for the war effort, manufacturing, building and fixing everything. There is now a 2 generation gap of lost know-how.
A “whole universe” is a good way of putting it. (Right down to, as I am discovering, essentially you have to find the estate agents in each area which “get” them too.)
Daughter has lovely 1922 ex-council flat in Whitechapel with a *private garden*. high ceilings, wood floors, large windows letting in tonnes of light, soundproofed. And cost about 20% less than local non-council equivalent. Plus communal rooftop terrace & 6 min walk to Elizabeth line.
Who'd have thought that local authorities (who don't go away, or go bankrupt and disappear) built robust starter homes, whereas private entrerprise developers cut corners and only catered to the wealthier?
I’ve actually always really fancied one of those post war prefabs. They were supposedly meant to provide temporary accommodation but they were really well designed and better built than so many of the crap housing estates springing up everywhere.
Unfortunately the conservationists, historic Scotland, etc, make it difficult to love these because putting energy saving/proper insulation into them is resisted. Freezing to death is a bit of an issue for me.
My house is ex-council 1950s and yes it’s not the most salubrious of roads but these babies are solid. Big rooms, thick walls, decent floors and gardens.
The thing I find puzzling is all the buyers in thrall to "period" property. Victorian stained glass in your front door can only compensate for so much poor layout, damp, downstairs bathroom, etc. Better built 1960-70s houses are a bargain in comparison.
Same. I also find it puzzling how it continues all along the housing 'ladder' as it were: I understand the 'first time buyer who pays a premium for some nice stained glass'. I don't understand how when it gets to family homes people aren't more jaded and haven't readjusted their priorities.
My house is a Manchester two-up-two-down from the 1890s. I had to spend £3000+ on stripping a wall on both floors down to the brick and waterproofing with membrane, and more than that on the roof. I get you!
As a thermal imaging surveyor, I’d say housing quality declined significantly around 1960 and seriously deteriorated further with the introduction of dot and dab drywall.
Relatedly, a lot of really great homes built in that period (and arguably worse for the ones just before them) are now being ruined by 'property investors' chopping them up into ludicrous flats to rent. I recently viewed an average post-war semi which had been turned into 4 (!) 1/2 bed flats
this is what densification means! either this or knocking down the old homes entirely. it's not "lack of supply", it's supply, plus the inconvenient facts that a) different locations aren't good substitutes for one another b) the best locations are difficult to build on because something's there
Yep. "maximised" with floorplans that defy logic and appear to have been imagined by a person who has never seen a home or knows what a human does in one
Turns out good housebuilding may be what the consumer wants, but the profit margins on crap housebuilding with nominally better specs that are actually much worse are marginally better?
Think part of this may well be the restricted housing supply. Less competition, higher costs associated with building, more homes built to be buy to lets. It's probably not a coincidence that our best housing stock is from the 30s and that's also when we built the most houses.
Yes - it's partly that there is little competition on quality, because buyers are rarely choosing between multiple options that are (i) where they want and (ii) in budget. And also the non-building costs are a big concern for builders and basically fixed regardless of what you squeeze onto the site.
I had a chat with a guy who did marketing for housing developments, and he was explaining that a real issue for him is that even with expensive developments, so many get crammed on the site you have a job persuading people that its worth, say, £2mil
Yeah, we are lucky to have the immense privilege of “moving for a spare room” rather than “for a baby”, which means we can always hold onto the lovely ex-council flat we have rather than “anything will do”.
It's all a bit complicated. The interwar period is a good example and also not: the complete shift in what middle class people wanted from life (suddenly what they wanted was a car and a big garden, whereas previously the goal had been servants of their own) meant the sort of massive suburban...
...building boom of the sort that is very unusual and not just in terms of scale. But also e.g. because of the birth of mass public housing as serious policy at the same time, you have a combined effect that brings stability to the building trades and encourages investment in things like...
The house I own is a 1930s semi and the house I rent is about 25 years old end-of-terrace and the difference is genuinely interesting. The new one is a lot warmer and the bills are lower but the doors don't fit properly, the garden is a postage stamp and the walls are paper thin
Also the ceilings! The 1930s one has like super high ceilings (TBF this is probably why it's cold) and the modern one just feels very pokey by comparison
You can also fairly accurately date when different bits of an area were built relative to each other just by looking at how much the gardens shrink and how efficiently they pack each individual dwelling into the alloted space.
My wife's from a Teesside town that had a chemical industry boom in the 50s and 60s and an architecturally daring town council* and... well, you can tell which side of this map was built by the council in the 50s, and which side was built by private developers in the 2010s.
*Billingham has a big multi-use arena/sports centre for its size and a once-innovative pedestrianised centre, built on ICI profits. The urban district was annexed to Teesside in 68, and there was a lot of skullduggery in 67 to get as many projects started as possible before the money tap turned off
I was just reading this in RIBA Publishing's fantastic history of SPAN Developments & Eric Lyons. Fair to say this neatly touches on almost all aspects of your posts above.
Tangent: I know several euro-types who've ended up in the UK and are absolutely outraged by the description of a box room as "a third bedroom"; you just would not get away with that in other countries.
When we sold my Dad's bungalow an estate agent said to describe the smallest bedroom as a double because technically a double bed would fit in it - no space either side though. We used a different agent.
My extremely niche complaint about Brexit from a housing campaigning perspective is the loss of middle-class European immigrants who are immediately appalled at the state of British housing. Having real-life experience of better homes was really useful energy.
In a weird way I do enjoy the sheepish “yeah” from the estate agent when you point out “this is a box room” - they know as well as we do ‘third bedroom’ is a bullshit description
I saw a house near Finsbury Park once that had been developed, so it now had 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms across 4 floors. All the bathrooms were on the same floor.
I live in a v unglamorous (private) 1930s block of flats among a sea of v lovely Victorian mansions and thousands of council flats alongside another soon to be done 1000 newbuilds. And save for an entire home, I’d much rather be in mine or a council flat than a brand new or a converted one.
It's really quite incredible in a flat full of badly shaped and inconvenient corners, they've neglected to use one of the only actual right angle corners usefully.
WTAF? In a couple of these plans, why tf would they put the radius of the shower cubicle to the wall, instead of putting the right angle of the shower tray in that corner of the room?
Turn of the 20th century stone-built detached houses ('villas') and terraces in the suburbs and medium-size towns of central Scotland were often extremely well built as well. In the cities, some tenements from similar times were awful, but with careful work a lot of them are today extremely nice.
I sometimes think that the british obsession with 'period' houses is symptomatic of its general decline. 'Yes its colder, worse built, past its design life, but it reminds me of the past'
Council housing is SO well built generally. My brother and his wife bought a 1930s terrace with double bay windows at the front opposite a park -- HUGE amount of room, super sturdy, and a 100 foot garden backing onto allotments. What is not to like?
I lived in a 1960s one for several years and it was wonderful - a one bedroom flat the size of most new build two beds, west facing balcony, abundant storage. Do watch out for the no-reserve-fund sudden and enormous Section 20 bills, though…
As someone contemplating getting the windows done... WINDOWS. when we get them done this will be the second time I've paid a fortune to get 1930s windows replaced (I had to do it when I bought my flat (under right to buy) back in the last century). It's hideous pricey and an awful experience.
Mine is 1955 ex-council and it is good, nice solid construction, front and back gardens, former owners did the rewiring, put heaters and boiler in, and new windows, so nothing wrong with it.
Heh. When we bought in not-London, we kept having estate agents push us to 1990s/2000s houses with rooms barely bigger than shoeboxes. We kept having to say we’d like something from 1950s–1970s, ideally. (Ended up in a 1960s property, with rooms that you can actually fit furniture AND people in!)
The rooms are all of a decent size, the windows are bigger than A4 paper, we have a garden that’s bigger than a postage stamp and oh boy is it solidly built.
Compare the sizes of windows in houses from 1950s - 1970s to the shoeboxes that get built now - it’s crazy.
People say this, yet there have been huge problems for people in private blocks, too. (And I prefer my repayment options with my local authority to with any of our private developers.)
Certainly true, particularly with cladding issues, but there is a particular problem with major works on whole estates, or large chunks of ex-LA street properties, where the LA is paying for continuing social housing and charging leaseholders, often in v big, badly managed contracts.
It is not without its problems, but mine was the only flat I found in which the second bedroom could actually fit a double bed. Plus it's peppercorn ground rent, consistently sane service charges and a local office to report problems to.
What always astounds me is the details and attempt to even think about the aesthetics. We live in a 1920s ex-council block, and there's some lovely basic art deco touches that make the building look very handsome.
Everything post war? Grey blocks that they use for police procedural backdrops
It gets even more obvious further back - there are Victorian almshouses that are absolutely magnificent. I mean, look at these (and this is just picking the ones local to me)
(I suppose it may be because ugly cheap Victorian almshouses all got pulled down, so we only see the beautiful examples)
there are some really beautiful former almshouses in south london. the free watermen ones by penge east station and girdlers cottages in peckham rye are some of my favourites
Living in a rural 1950s council bungalow at the moment - huge garden; decent kitchen and living room; plus the loft has been converted into a very decently sized bedroom (if you are short and/or don't want to stand up near the walls)
1) The English freehold system should be illegal, I just want to make that clear - the kind of bit where you can dodge it by having one shop downstairs is flat-out evil
2) I would be a bit nervous about owner-occupying in an ex-local in London *even under commonhold, the nominal best kind of hold* because I would be worried that my fellow owners wouldn't be able to afford the charge to mend the roof or fix the cladding but it still needs to be done
Some of the people I have known who have bought the lease on London council places have said that the council stiffs leaseholders in the sense that they make up from leaseholders the fees they can't get from council tenants. They might have been exaggerating.
*sorry, having brought extra brain to the occasion: more specifically, the fees they can't get from ex-council tenants who bought the lease and now don't have any money (so could move to Thurrock etc but understandably don't want to) are charged to the leaseholders who can - not the council per se
Oh, yeah, I get you. Yeah the thing you’ve got to check and we’re lucky in with our flat now is the leaseholders are all of working age not the “RTB granny holiding on for grim death because understandably she doesn’t want to leave London”.
The commonhold management company puts a charge on the commonhold unit that is behind on its payments and then you get the grim choice of either:
• waiting for the commonhold to transfer due to mortality and asking the estate to cough up
• county court judgements
Very keen on my 2 bed 1960s raised GF brick built ex-council in zone 2 west London. 5 flats in block, nice neighbours, good sized rooms, shared garden. Low ground rent/ service charge. Cheapest way of buying in location. At one point 5/6 of work team lived ex council flats 🤷🏻♀️.
Why would I want somewhere that gives me approx twice the sq ft for my buck as some shitty newbuild that'll probably be crawling with mice within a year? (naming no newbuilds like the place in Campbell Rd, Bow I lived in when I first. moved to London)
We intentionally found an ex council house from the 30s. It’s massive, well built, and stuff we needed to fix was cyclical like the roof. And no competition on sales which was wild.
Ours is 64/5. The level of consideration for lived experience is amazing. The layout, space, storage just great. We have some issues but it’s 60 years old so you know. They even designed drying cupboards and pram sheds.
The Parker Morris public housing standards were some of the best we have ever had. That's why Thatcher abolished them. Can't have the oiks enjoying all that space, light and solid structure.
also consider Edwardian mansion blocks: those bad boys are built to be flats, and they often have loads of space and well proportioned rooms, unlike Victorian conversions where you've got the kitchen as a row of units in the sitting room (which I hate).
Thanks for this, that’s a useful bit of widening to have that isn’t just “sending the estate agent our own listing and going ‘like this, but with an extra room”.
My first flat (part share with my brother) was ex.LA in a mixed block and despite being 50 hrs old had far fewer structural problems than the new build leasehold block I moved to that was built by absolute charlatans & managed by offshore freeholder
I also expended a huge amount of time organizing residents in face of multiple major works problems only to discover (as many other has) that governance and accountability in the housing system for defects barely existant or is so difficult only the most catastrophic claims worth pursuing
I looked at a couple of mansion block flats when I bought my flat (a very long time ago) and seriously considered them, but then got very lucky and found my place. They're great flats.
Agreed - they're the best. Used to live in one. Lateral living is great (there's a reason people like bungalows, unfashionable though they be) but they combine lateral living with sensible dense use of land.
We live in a 1927 mansion block (or what would be called one in England) and I love the layout. No messy compromises with the space. As long as you can handle the copropriété council.
I live in a council block built in the 40s and designed by HJ Whitfield Lewis, who ran the LCC housing section for ten years and seems to have been a fine fellow. High ceilings, plenty of light, big windows. They don't make 'em like that any more.
Because it won’t burn down from the missing compartmentation/fire breaks, leak from the crap plumbing, be full of condensation, have murderous service charges … oh stop now…
Fridge, sink, hob, oven (can be a normal cooker, can be separate hob on the counter /integrated oven - double or with microwave), enough counter space to work on, and, absolutely most important - a long etagere where you put all your gadgets (airfryer, mukticooker etc), plugged in and ready to use.
And for the love of God make sure there is enough open shelving storage, don't start slapping doors willy-nilly on all storage and pantry spaces just for the sake of it.
I mean. The flat I grew up in (and then bought) had a galley kitchen. With, basically what you describe. But a single oven (plus hob). Plus an old fashioned larder. And a door onto the fire escape. It was fine.
I mean. I'm not responsible for how the estate agent described my kitchen when I sold my flat. One work surface is all we had unless we count the top of the fridge which my mum used to use as a second counter top until we got a microwave. Probs why me and my sister have little interest in cooking.
double oven is useful for cooking alive the estate agent who thinks that it being attached to an induction hob justifies whacking 10k on the asking price
I'm with you on this, Local Authorities built for use/utility and not for the sole aim to maximise profit. I'd also throw in anything built 70+ years ago for the same reason.
I'm looking at you, the entire housebuilding industry, with your six foot ceilings and stingy windows.
Isn't a lot of this down to building regulations? Eg windows can't be less than a certain distance from the floor without an unsightly bar to prevent falls, so the windows are just smaller instead.
Oh, smaller windows are a choice, definitely. I've just had my house rebuilt and the opening windows had to be 70cm above the floor so a leggy toddler can't climb over and fall out
To have big windows all I had to do was have a non-opening section below 70cm
Yeah, and also worth considering just how much effect lobby groups - and housing has a lobby ecosystem befitting its potential profits - have on the drafting of regulations.
Yep. Building regs were relaxed under the Tories...who received millions from property developers
My wife ran a local authority until a couple of years ago and she spent quite a lot of time dealing with housing developments that had shoddy workmanship. Persimmon a big offender
Maybe? But commercial buildings have for decades tended to feature entire walls made of glass, presumably volutarily, so it surely can't be just down to 'wall is cheaper than window'.
Very few shops, offices and light industrial units are built from brick, not least as that would make shopfitting and reconfiguration prohibitively expensive for new tenants.
Whataboutery on my part, I know, but “ex-council” shouldn’t be a thing at all. Nothing against those who have benefited from it but RTB is a compounded waste of public money and should be abolished.
When you say "conditions attached" what do you mean? Are you thinking, for example, of new builds that have needlessly bean made leasehold for no apparent reason other than the developer retains the right to gradually shaft the purchasers over the coming years?
Recently bought a 1980s 2 bed share of freehold as a first time buyer. Almost everything new I viewed was leasehold, terrible layouts, tiny floorplan, pokey windows with no air flow, and absurd service charges that are more than double what I now pay.
I love our ex-council flat that we’ve been in for 11 years. I wonder if we’ll ever leave in search of a garden and freehold, but this would likely mean less space as my kids approach adolescence. I wish more people put size and utility above period features.
I don't know if you'll see this but do everything you can to avoid leasehold. I pay £130 a month for a bloke to hoover the corridor outside my flat every week for no reason
Pretty much any quote for renovation/extensions of period properties is double what it was pre-pandemic. It makes no financial sense to buy and extend at the moment.
I moved about a year ago from a one-bed ex-council flat to a two-bed. Both blocks still under council freehold and a mixture of tenants, which I actually quite like. Spacious, well-insulated, reasonable service charge, there's nothing to dislike - and the council as freeholder is pretty good.
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New railway works conversion: no garage, no storage, weird layout… £50k more.
At least Peter Barber is still plugging away
Not just background!
https://www.schroders.com/en/global/individual/insights/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/
But you’ll get asked to stump up extra cash on a regular basis if the price goes against you
(I’m being facetious, you make a good point)
46/47 changed direction and commenced a huge state building programme
The country through 50s 60s 70s benefited hugely
Can’t recall who stopped it in 80s
It would show we only built high numbers when a) TCPA didn't exist and free market ruled or b) LAs built tonnes of homes and govt coordinated new towns
Now we have worst of both worlds
But it is very different to building specific new homes as we did previously
I'm not against it per se (as I say to Dan it's partly filled the gap) but it isn't as good as building new homes and eventually runs out of road.
Here:
"We're looking to upsize from an 80sqm two-bed."
"I've got a perfect 75sqm three-bed I think you'll love."
As does a studio flat advertised as one bedroom flat
This is 550k worth of real estate.
(Don’t worry that non-en-suite has a toilet in photos)
Herringbone flat:
Not as somewhere to live, mind. Just that it makes for a more interesting floor plan visually.
The rooms are all of a decent size, the windows are bigger than A4 paper, we have a garden that’s bigger than a postage stamp and oh boy is it solidly built.
Compare the sizes of windows in houses from 1950s - 1970s to the shoeboxes that get built now - it’s crazy.
Everything post war? Grey blocks that they use for police procedural backdrops
(I suppose it may be because ugly cheap Victorian almshouses all got pulled down, so we only see the beautiful examples)
fantastic property, the workmanship / brickwork puts every new build to shame
• waiting for the commonhold to transfer due to mortality and asking the estate to cough up
• county court judgements
Each commonholder pays their allocated share of maintenance costs (or there can be a sinking fund mechanism).
For me it was such a no brainer
I'm looking at you, the entire housebuilding industry, with your six foot ceilings and stingy windows.
To have big windows all I had to do was have a non-opening section below 70cm
My wife ran a local authority until a couple of years ago and she spent quite a lot of time dealing with housing developments that had shoddy workmanship. Persimmon a big offender
Very few shops, offices and light industrial units are built from brick, not least as that would make shopfitting and reconfiguration prohibitively expensive for new tenants.
But we do seem notably worse at this than other countries, so presumably structural (!) factors play *some* role.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Morris_Committee?wprov=sfti1
Perhaps these estate agents should start watching Homes Under the Hammer, Kirsty & Phil, etc?
5 Bedrooms but the living area the size of a cupboard
Excellent property