"Peter Parry" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 14:12:07 +0100, Mike Mitchell
wrote:

I don't mean one of
IMM's weirdo properties, but bog-standard ones - just to German
designs!

No thank you - lived in plenty of them and only survived in one by
wearing rubber gloves when going near unearthed washing machines.
The 25kW instant water heater that made the TV picture shrink and the
light go out was something else as well.

It has a basement. Nearly all modern German houses have a basement.

That's because the 2ATAF slum clearance programme concentrated their
minds and in 1949 it became a mandatory requirement on all new
builds. In Germany anything which is not mandatory is prohibited.

Nearly all British houses, old or new, do NOT have a basement!

True, blame the RAF as usual :-)

Drive around
any German suburb and see so many fantastic designs!

and 150 year mortgages.

And these are not
all super-rich people, either, but just ordinary working folks with
middling to good jobs who believe in paying for quality, and getting
it.

True - the only country where having a child is essential to getting
a mortgage (someone has to pay the last 100 years).

Not the only country - Japan has this problem as well.