That may be a perk of having had an aristocratic ruling class, the first industrial revolution, and global empire (not being sarcastic- I'm a big Hidden Houses of Wales fan, would love to renovate an old castle). The UK was historically wealthy and has amazing old houses. In the US every decade has had significantly better housing stock with increasing standards of living, so its much less appealing to get an older house in 95% of the country. Especially anything 40s - 70s you get smallish rooms, low ceilings and questionable "vintage" building practices like I'm dealing with now (aluminum wiring, poor insulation, etc).