Anyone bought a 'new' home before?

OCdude

OCdude

OCdude

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I'm planning to move out Q1 2012 (touch wood!) and i'm seriously looking at some new builds in Colchester.

I've done lots of Googling which has resulted in lots of nightmare stories (lots of issues, leaks, bodge-jobs done on the plumbing etc) but to be honest, if you Google ANY of the developers (Charles Church / Bovis / Wimpey etc) they all appear to be as bad as each other!

One thing that does appeal, is the part-exchange deals that a lot of these developers offer. Sounds like it would take out a LOT of the hassle, but i'm assuming there's a catch (i.e. they'll give me a crappy offer for my property).

Does anyone have any experience of buying a new home? I'd be interested to hear your experiences!
 
I'm looking at a few houses with a view to move out before April, not new builds though, just need to visit a mortgage advisor, get a surveyor and make an offer
 
I purchased a new build 2 years ago. The first thing you need to understand: No new house will be perfect - ever. That's the bottom line, there will always be issues, some of the people who write complaints assume that it will be inch perfect and there will be no issues etc, etc etc - but there will be faults. Luckily for us the building defects have been quite minimal, stud popping, a few leaky pipes around certain fittings, door dropping and whatnot.
Our neighbours over the road turned their bath on and the pipe came off which flooded their garage (under the bathroom!) but that was sorted really quickly.
Make friends with the site manager and staff, they're usually pretty decent if you don't stamp your feet.
That said I still have a list that I'm waiting for odd jobs to be done at the mo and our 2 year just expired, so now the feet stamping starts!

Re Part exchange, we did this - some builders are better than others with the offers and there will be a trade off. Get your place surveyed first, so you know what it's worth and what you should expect it to go for on todays market. The builder will offer less. In our case the same agent came round to do the builders valuation - but couldn't tell us what they told the builder. When the offer came in, it about about £5k less than I was happy with, but managed to negotiate legal fees and 'options' on the build.
The legal firm we used was rubbish (recommended by the builder) we had some complications that arose during the exchange and it all got a bit messy which led to all the assistance from our legal eagles evaporating and I had to do a lot of the leg work. Luckily my mum was a properly lawyer at some point so she gave me lots of helpful advice!

Negotiate hard with the sales team, they want to sell houses - I should have negotiated harder, next door went for 10k less, but there was no part-ex and they paid cash :(
(my builder is Taylor Wimpey)

/edit - oh forgot to add, if some of the houses on the site have been sold - go chat to the owners to find out any problems / recommendations. We were the 4th house to occupy on our estate, and a few people have asked us about things and I'd have been happy to answer more :)
 
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The problem with Googling things is that you are nearly always going to turn up more complaints than compliments!

In my experience (ex new homes salesperson here!) people are rarely happy with the part-ex values offered. From the housebuilders point of view they are taking on a property that, in most cases, the owner has tried to sell but can't and 9 times out of 10 the reason that it hasn't sold is because the asking price was just too high. Any house will sell if the asking price is correct. That means that as far as the house builder is concerned they are already dealing with someone who has an overinflated value of what their property is worth so any offer they make is going to look bad.

They also have to budget for keeping the property until they manage to sell it and they'll need to market it at a price that ensures they get rid of it as soon as possible.

If you're just wanting to avoid the hassle of selling your own place and have a realistic idea of what it would take to sell it quickly the part ex might work for you.
 
Tibbz2 said:
We've built 2 of our houses ourselves and our most recent one was just finished as we moved in! :)
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Surely just typing 'no' as a reply would have been easier, but congrats on the houses - you are obviously very proud of them. ;)
 
I bought a brand new house a couple of years ago and apart from some settlement problems, it's been fine. Still, I doubt I'll buy brand new again. The only plus point was that I got the developers to put the tv point where I wanted it and not where they thought it should go.
 
Vampyre said:
The problem with Googling things is that you are nearly always going to turn up more complaints than compliments!

In my experience (ex new homes salesperson here!) people are rarely happy with the part-ex values offered. From the housebuilders point of view they are taking on a property that, in most cases, the owner has tried to sell but can't and 9 times out of 10 the reason that it hasn't sold is because the asking price was just too high. Any house will sell if the asking price is correct. That means that as far as the house builder is concerned they are already dealing with someone who has an overinflated value of what their property is worth so any offer they make is going to look bad.

They also have to budget for keeping the property until they manage to sell it and they'll need to market it at a price that ensures they get rid of it as soon as possible.

If you're just wanting to avoid the hassle of selling your own place and have a realistic idea of what it would take to sell it quickly the part ex might work for you.
Click to expand...

I'm definitely going to get a couple of valuations from the local estate agents soon, so yar, i'll at least be able to tell whether or not the offer the builders give me is a **** take or not :D But yeah, it does sound really appealing! Avoiding being in a chain? Yes please!

Chief Wiggum said:
I purchased a new build 2 years ago. The first thing you need to understand: No new house will be perfect - ever. That's the bottom line, there will always be issues, some of the people who write complaints assume that it will be inch perfect and there will be no issues etc, etc etc - but there will be faults. Luckily for us the building defects have been quite minimal, stud popping, a few leaky pipes around certain fittings, door dropping and whatnot.
Our neighbours over the road turned their bath on and the pipe came off which flooded their garage (under the bathroom!) but that was sorted really quickly.
Make friends with the site manager and staff, they're usually pretty decent if you don't stamp your feet.
That said I still have a list that I'm waiting for odd jobs to be done at the mo and our 2 year just expired, so now the feet stamping starts!

Re Part exchange, we did this - some builders are better than others with the offers and there will be a trade off. Get your place surveyed first, so you know what it's worth and what you should expect it to go for on todays market. The builder will offer less. In our case the same agent came round to do the builders valuation - but couldn't tell us what they told the builder. When the offer came in, it about about £5k less than I was happy with, but managed to negotiate legal fees and 'options' on the build.
The legal firm we used was rubbish (recommended by the builder) we had some complications that arose during the exchange and it all got a bit messy which led to all the assistance from our legal eagles evaporating and I had to do a lot of the leg work. Luckily my mum was a properly lawyer at some point so she gave me lots of helpful advice!

Negotiate hard with the sales team, they want to sell houses - I should have negotiated harder, next door went for 10k less, but there was no part-ex and they paid cash :(
(my builder is Taylor Wimpey)

/edit - oh forgot to add, if some of the houses on the site have been sold - go chat to the owners to find out any problems / recommendations. We were the 4th house to occupy on our estate, and a few people have asked us about things and I'd have been happy to answer more :)
Click to expand...

From what i've read, it seems to be the norm (and definitely recommended) to put together a "snag list" once you move in, I think i'd definitely be doing that! I wouldn't be annoyed to find minor things (bit of superficial damage here and there etc) but i'd be pretty peeved if I found major bodge jobs (especially when it comes to plumbing/electrics!)

As for negotiating... hmm hadn't really thought of that, although I'm rubbing as bartering/negotiating haha!

Jay794 said:
I'm looking at a few houses with a view to move out before April, not new builds though, just need to visit a mortgage advisor, get a surveyor and make an offer
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I'll be starting this journey in the new year! I had it easy last time as I was moving from my parents place, so it was relatively pain free :o
 
bought 2, in terms of build quality no major problems, loads of small niggles but nothing to put me off doing it again

the first one I bought, they had the opening weekend of the development, sold about 8 houses and then the week after flogged the rest to a housing association :mad:
 
I've seen some of the structural designs and plans for newbuilds, I've also seen the way the builders work. Wouldn't go near any new builds, they're all built as cheaply as possible and only just satisfy basic building regs. Flimsy and not built to last.
Aside from that they're characterless eyesores inside and out.

And yes they'll give you a crap offer on your house, theres always a catch.

I'm talking about george wimpey because I know a few guys who used to subcontract there but to be honest all developers are the same.
 
We have been in our new Persimmon home since last September.

As above do not expect the house to be 100% perfect. The speed these things get put up now is unbelievable.

It doesn't bother me that a few things need sorting as the house is not how we want it anyway, i.e. we will be ripping out the bathroom and ensuite and refit with better fittings and tiles etc. It works out far cheaper to do it this way that getting the builders to do it.

Hope you like magnolia as that is all you will be looking at for a while whilst the house dries out!

One benefit of a new house is it is cheap to run, the house is warm and stays warm so heating is only needed to take the chill off in the morning and evening.

Good luck with it!
 
The snagging list is definitely something you should be putting together when you move in cos assuming that the developer is NHBC registered you will have 10years cover to fix the problems within your house. If the house is covered by an architects certificate however it is only valid for 6 years.
 
Derek W said:
The snagging list is definitely something you should be putting together when you move in cos assuming that the developer is NHBC registered you will have 10years cover to fix the problems within your house. If the house is covered by an architects certificate however it is only valid for 6 years.
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that is for major stuff, snagging items are normally only for 1 or 2 years
 
Skeeter said:
Shock as I get lied to by mortgage advisor.....
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New builds come with what is seen as a price premium, so because the mortgage valuation will typically come in lower that it would otherwise for a non new build, you would typically need a higher deposit to compensate.
 
Moved in to our new build back in October, I came up with 3 A4 pages of defects, most of which have been sorted out now.
The last defect was the external doors.
Front and back doors did not fit properly in the frames and are being replaced. Our developer decided to have attempts made to rectify this by jiggling the frame of the front door and in the process destroyed the surrounding rendering,plaster work and my newly laid engineered oak flooring! I am expecting the doors to be sorted next week and then as the repair guy they sent has said the floor cannot be repaired (too much damage and over a wide area behind the door), and it is no longer available, they will have to pay me compensation or replace the lot! ( i could hide most of the scratches and dents with a door mat but do not see why i should!)
Other than that, i really like it.
One bit of advice though. Definately take time stamped photos of defects you find during your pre completion inspection, take your time with the inspection and do not let any agent try and tell you something is fit for purpose when you think not.
I actually ended up making a DVD highlighting our problems, it was 47 minutes long!
To be fair though, as an engineer i do tend to pick up on small things that even my wife thinks are fine!
 
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