Shoebox Houses UK

Houses in the United Kingdom have been decreasing in size for many years now. The ‘shoebox’ housing syndrome has gripped urban Britain tightly, making the average residential property one of the smallest in Europe and the developed world altogether. Home buyers are increasingly feeling cheated out, not only in terms of UK’s ridiculously high property prices, but also regarding the actual floor space and living space of their houses. It is becoming more common for builders to state one size but actually build a home with smaller dimensions, wrapping up the issue in technical lingo and incomprehensible construction terms and regulations.

Britain’s got some of the smallest homes out there

Unfortunately, this is a common issue in many regions of Great Britain, not just cramped and overpopulated cities like London – houses are getting impossibly small, making every day dwelling all the more complicated. Two people who recently sold their relatively spacious home in Croydon, London in hope of finding a more suitable residence have ended up regretting the change, and they are not the only ones who have fallen in the size trap. In an attempt to voice out the problem and show the public how unfair the whole thing is, the two co-owners put together a survey, based on official data from RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) and the results are far from positive. Developers are downsizing newly built homes in order to fit more houses on a given block of land, although this might bring some price relief in the form of paying less for fewer square feet, the actual house size is making life difficult.

Britain has the smallest homes in Western Europe, and that’s a fact. Smaller homes might also have an effect on certain industries like property removals. Here are some figures to consider:

• A newly built three bedroom home in UK is at least 8 square metres smaller than its minimum recommended size;
• A newly built home in Ireland provides for an average of 88 square metres of floor space – 15% bigger than a UK home;
• In The Netherlands, new home size gravitates around 115 square metres, which is the healthy 53% larger than the average UK home;
• In Denmark, new homes occupy an average of 137 square metres, a whopping 80% larger than their British counterparts;

At either end of the scale

Great Britain may be one of the worst performers in terms of house size in Northwest Europe, but it is by far not the worst in the world. If the amount of living space was broken down to ‘per person’ basis it turns out that UK is bottom half of the table, but not rock bottom. That unpleasant honour goes to Hong Kong where living space is as small as 15 square metres per person. Great Britain offers about 33 square metres of living space per person. At the other end of the scale, the traditional leaders still remain – Canada offering about 72 square metres, US offering around 77 square metres, and Australia leading the chart with a whopping 90 square metres of living space per person.