{"id":16087,"date":"2018-04-30T12:15:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T11:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyassociation.co.uk\/?p=16087"},"modified":"2018-04-30T12:15:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T11:15:40","slug":"does-size-matter-not-to-househunting-millennials-says-architect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/news\/does-size-matter-not-to-househunting-millennials-says-architect\/","title":{"rendered":"Does size matter? Not to househunting millennials, says architect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Controversial comments from a London-based architect who believes that busy millennials only need hotel room-sized flats to live in has sparked debate over whether minimum home sizes should be scrapped.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Homeownership among today’s young people is at an all-time low<\/a>, with reasons for this ranging from a\u00a0lack of affordability as a result of the UK’s housing crisis, to improvements in the private rented sector (PRS) meaning many young people would prefer to continue renting<\/a> for longer before committing to a mortgage.<\/p>\n

While the increased number of\u00a0new-builds<\/a> being developed today is going some way towards tackling the crisis, recent statistics have revealed that property sizes are now an average 32% smaller<\/a> than they were in the 1970s, but one architect has declared that this is actually the way forward for millennials.<\/p>\n

Hotel room-sized apartments are fine for millennials<\/h4>\n

Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects has written a paper stating that today’s young people prioritise location over space as they carry out their busy lives, and would prefer to live in a studio the size of a hotel<\/a> room that is right in the centre of town<\/a> compared to commuting long distances.<\/p>\n

He said: “Those who are now making the hard choice between\u00a0paying 80% of their income on a central flat\u00a0versus commuting from afar, will in the liberalised future appreciate new options<\/a> and perhaps choose to pay only 60% for a smaller but more central flat.<\/p>\n

“For many young professionals who are out and about networking 24\/7, a small, clean, private hotel room-sized central patch serves their needs perfectly well.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Young professionals should be given priority to live in the most central homes, believes Schumacher, as they will benefit the most by being well-located to attend early morning meetings, after-work networking events, weekend conferences and professional lectures.<\/p>\n

Tearing communities\u00a0apart<\/h4>\n

While some government guidance states that the minimum floor area for a new home must be 37 square metres, Schumacher says: “Units half that size, built at an earlier time, are rare and thus at the moment overpriced, hotly desired commodities, for rent or for sale.<\/p>\n

“Lifting this prohibition would allow a whole new (lower) income group, which is now excluded, to enter the market. This move would both boost overall unit numbers and affordability<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

The views have been criticised by Dan Wilson Craw of Generation Rent campaign group, who thinks that while changes to planning restrictions<\/a> in some ways would be a good thing, building such small spaces would tear up communities and create a severe lack of family homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Do we want to have a completely shifting society in our big cities where everyone is a pay cheque\u00a0away from losing their home and people are having to move very quickly and there’s no chance of developing a sense of community?” Craw said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Controversial comments from a London-based architect who believes that busy millennials only need hotel room-sized flats to live in has sparked debate over whether minimum home sizes should be scrapped. Homeownership among today’s young people is at an all-time low, with reasons for this ranging from a\u00a0lack of affordability as a result of the UK’s… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":16115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,59,6],"tags":[82,341],"class_list":["post-16087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buy-to-let-landlords","category-trending-news","category-uk-housing-market","tag-millennials","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyassociationgroup.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}