Three-storey Living

Taylor Wimpey’s really pushing Glasdir, in the lovingly crafted, gushing, adjective-rich language reserved only for house builders and estate agents. Stunning, stylish, spacious, phenomenal, practical, fantastic, affordable, idyllic, eco-friendly, contemporary, beautiful, popular… are all there in another whole page Daily Post advertisement, on Saturday 27th March. Glasdir’s also appeared in three recent Free Press editions, as editorial.

Also in Saturday 27th’s Daily Post was a page two story that told of the steepest UK falls in house prices in February were in North Wales. Houses on average were 2.4 per cent down, compared to an increase of 3.6 per cent in north west England. Such bad news isn’t apparently affecting Glasdir sales.

Glasdir is “enjoying such phenomenal success that the house builder’s third phase of homes has been brought forward to meet demand”. Phenomenal means extraordinary or sensational. Is this true? Glasdir’s been very slow to sell, to date. But Taylor Wimpey can at last be quietly confident that the desperate times before the winter have now passed. As for the third phase being “brought forward”, that’s probably slightly spun. Had there been better times from the start, Phase III would be done & dusted by now.

“The launch of the three bedroom Prion showhome at Glasdir last weekend saw nearly 60 per cent of the remaining properties on phase II snapped up by purchasers eager to secure a home on this popular development.” My calculator makes that 16 and four-fifths houses sold—seemingly in one go. That still leaves 11 and one fifth to follow.

In particular, Taylor Wimpey’s promoting “three-storey living”. It says, “A three bedroom, three storey home can contain much more space than a three bedroom, two storey home”. Erm, it *can* but it probably doesn’t. Both have three beds, after all.

I’ve not been in what Taylor Wimpey is also calling its “view home”, though I have been inside an actual, occupied three-storey Glasdir house. On ground, off a reasonable hall, there was a reasonable kitchen diner, with an arch to a living space; plus a lavatory & utility space. On first, there were two rooms that can be used as beds or living space, plus a bathroom. On second was two bedroms, one en suite.

The drawback associated with three-storey living is obvious—stairs. These are quite narrow and make moving furniture or anything around a tiresome businesses. Most domestic accidents occur on the stairwell and three-storey living has two from which to chose. Those who plan to stay for a good few years need to consider their knees. And then in the next 10 years, there’s maintenance. How do you easily reach the guttering, fascia or upper windows?

All that said, it’s better to see these houses occupied than not. And they still represent incredible value for money. I really mean incredible. This seems especially strange given that Bryant Homes was reported to have paid £7mil for the site, for 178 houses.