o.O

[jadesfire]

Dear Estate Agent,

House hunting is hard. Being first time buyers is hard. Trawling through property websites and estate agents' lists for something suitable is boring and hard.

You are not helping.

No love,

Me

~~~~

The reason for this letter? I was doing one of my regular hunts for property websites that aren't Rightmove and stumbled across some interesting things. There were the usual houses in terrible areas, and terrible houses in good areas. All fine and dandy, you might think.

Under the cut is what one agent is selling for £120,000 as a bungalow.





I KID YOU NOT. Click the picture for the full details.

SRSLY. IDEK.

Comments

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

My impression is that single-story dwellings are more common in the US, especially where there is space.

Especially in the South and West, by my observation. (Basements are less common in those places as well. Which is unfortunate since half of the South is in Tornado Alley!) Up north and out east, two-story houses seem more common. Maybe they're easier to heat as well as taking up less land? Whereas down here what we're more concerned about is getting a breeze through those windows. :)

So do you think the commonness of the one-story dwelling is related to the decrease in the use of the term "bungalow"?

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

*tilts head* Maybe. I think that 'bungalow' became...not a term of abuse, but not a good thing either. It's not fashionable to live in a bungalow - they're what old people live in because they can't climb the stairs any more. They're just...unsexy, I think.

I hadn't thought of it like that, but yes, a 'two up, two down' (British generic term for a small house - two rooms down stairs, two up and the loo at the end of the garden ;)) would be cheaper to heat, definitely. Which is a good thing over here!

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

It's not fashionable to live in a bungalow - they're what old people live in because they can't climb the stairs any more. They're just...unsexy, I think.

Hmm, that would explain why people in the UK might not want to use the term (though it seems it's still used there often), but where I live, it's not particularly unfashionable to live in a one-story house. They're just so common. A lot of very nice, decent middle-class houses are one-story, yet we don't use the term "bungalow" at all as far as I've seen. There must be more to this regional language mystery! (We don't have to track down the answer, I just get curious about these things. *g*)

[miss-zedem.livejournal.com]

The concept of the one story dwelling is widespread - the US, Canada, Australia, the UK etc etc all have variations on the basic theme, although in the UK we almost exclusively use the term to mean a one story house (whereas elsewhere the house can have rooms built into the attic). From what I can gather, the actual word is Indian in origin, which may explain why it's so widespread in the UK and not so much in the US - our 'proud' *cough* colonial history meant we nicked all sorts of words. It does exist in the US (Google told me, so it must be true), but it seems to be a design term rather than one that the general public would use.

*tilts head* I'm not sure if I helped or hindered there... *butts back out*

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

The Wikipedia article did surprise me with all of its examples of US bungalows! I would never have thought of them as that -- they're *houses*. *g* My only thought was that it's a term that used mainly in the East or possibly anywhere outside the "middle," or it has fallen out of use only in the past few decades (which would explain why it was in my mother's childhood copy of Nancy Drew). But actually, if it's a design term, that would make a lot of sense -- I don't read design and architectural literature, and if it's not used in ordinary conversation or in real estate circles, I wouldn't have heard it.

Thank you!