“more Ballardian”
I’m torn here. I love the phrase, but the prospects for the future owners can’t be good.
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Not really. In the U.S., external fire escapes are associated with pre-1950s buildings under ten stories. Innovations like fire-rated internal stairwells and sprinkler systems and better building codes made the external stairs obsolete in most new construction.
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Where I lived on the Harringay Ladder it was the same, and those houses were far older. Just under the grass was mostly broken glass and brick shards.
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A good friend of mine is a groundworker.
His take is “don’t buy any house built less than 50 or 60 years ago.”
In his words: “The only good thing about a house built since 1980 is that, in case of a fire, you’ll be able to punch your way out through the walls”.
ETA - UK
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The one thing that I tell my kids about property is to never buy a new build house in the UK.
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… they have multiple exit paths inside the building
If one accidentally got built with only one stairway inside, damn right it would have fire escapes 
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It could apply equally to the USA Midwest or Canada if you ask folks like Mike Holmes.
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And in new construction, they have to be separated. They can’t be “scissor stairs” which wrap around each other as used to be permitted.
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Revised Approved Document here
The (il)logic behind the single escape route was that the flats would be capable of containing a fire for long enough that the fire brigade could extinguish it before it affected other flats, thus allowing residents to stay put (the fatal advice given).
Among many other failings in the regulation was the faulty provision of fire doors, refuge spaces and, crowning this, falsified fire safety tests on cladding.
One thing that’s particularly hard to grasp for Americans is that many Britons dream of living in one of these modern pale-brick outhouses, driving to everything, and never setting foot outside the lot.
They really don’t. It is a lack of choice that has resulted in this pathetic state of affairs, you can blame all sorts of causes, various governments’ inefficiency, pragmatic lethargy and lack of foresight, gouging developers and even Brexit.
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To be fair, many Britons probably do dream of living in a new build, because even a badly built house is better than the shitty flat they’ve been renting off a parasitic landlord, that’s probably infested with literally fatal black mould.
Except they can’t of course, because even with all the terrible new builds, there’s still not enough housing, so practically no one can afford them. Especially when you’re spending 50% of your wages on rent already.
People buy these houses because they have no other choice.
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True, I should have made it clear that I was thinking more of this part
driving to everything, and never setting foot outside the lot.
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I feel like people are getting wise to this though and its fairly common knowledge that these houses are basically a scam. Nobody I know would touch a newbuild and it is regularly in UK national and local news how terrible they are. I wonder if this means that they will soon be worth considerably less than people are paying for them or they will be demolished en masse in years to come
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One thing that’s particularly hard to grasp for Americans is that many Britons dream of living in one of these modern pale-brick outhouses, driving to everything
The majority of Americans live in car-centric, suburban tract houses. Only we have curved roads and cul de sacs to lower the density and lower the tax value per acre.
Also brick is a significant upgrade.
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