Interesting Facts

According to the Office for National Statistics, 562,000 people in the UK work in the real estate sector. (The only problem with this is estate agents often top the poll of most hated professionals (just below politicians). In London, estate agent signs have been modified to say "Estate Agents. Everyone hates you." )

According to Anchor, a not-for-profit housing and care provider, at least 100,000 pensioners who died penniless and alone have been buried in paupers’ graves in the past five years, a charity revealed yesterday. (In fact 40,000 people a year in Britain receive state-funded funerals as rising funeral prices and the breakdown of family units has led to about 21,000 pensioners dying every year without the money for funeral bills and with no relatives willing or able to pay. In the UK if you cannot afford to pay for a funeral the council is obliged to step in. It seems sad, but I don't suppose it bothers the deceased that much.) Source - Daily Mail

British homes are, on average, 4°C warmer, than they were 50 years ago. (The fact is that only 7% of UK homes are without central heating and the average temperature in a home is 22°C, compared with 18°C in the 1950s.  This has completely changed the way people in the UK live.  Gone are the cosy little rooms, that were easy to keep warm, and the open plan living / dining / kitchen areas are in.  Of course with the increase in fuel prices, we may be rebuilding all those partition walls pretty soon.)

powered by ODEO According to ING Direct Bank, UK home buyers spend an average of 17 minutes looking at a house before deciding to buy it. (17 minutes! It takes me longer than that to make my mind up about what pair of shoes to buy.)

Eighteen percent of all new homes built in the UK are built on residential land, up from 11% a decade ago. (Homes are springing up in people's gardens as the property boom continues. This is called "garden grabbing", where developers buy a house with a big garden, apply for planning permission to demolish the house and build either flats, or even a mini-estate in its place. Property in the UK has gone crazy, and it's not sustainable.)

At present a typical UK home costs seven times the average salary. (Government figures show that in 2000 the average cost of a home was four times annual earnings. predicts that this is set to rise again unless supply increases. By 2026 the NHPAU (the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit) estimates that the average price will be ten times yearly earnings.)

A three-bedroom house built today must have at least 38 sockets. (This is more than twice as many as 30 years ago. The number has been set by the National House Building Council's technical standards. They recommend 4 each in the kitchen and utility room, 4 in the living room, 8 in a living/family room with 2 near the TV aerial. Funnily enough they reckon there should be 6 in the main bedroom, and four in other bedrooms. I have no idea why you would need so many sockets in the bedroom. The mind boggles.)

In the UK over 4 million people live in a council house. (However, it's very difficult to get one. Once you're in though you're laughing.)