Buying a new build house from a large developer rant
- Thread starter CraigN
- Start date
Selling houses is totally hit and miss right now, I have just found one and the paperwork is going through, the one I found had only been on the market 24hrs but it was exactly what I wanted so I offered, others have been on the market for months at supposedly the right price but have not sold because in actual fact they are overpriced.
I don't blame the builders at all, the only thing you can do is sell the house and then approach the builders again with the cash, thats the thing as your not really a viable buyer until you have the money, even some sellers won't accept your offer until your property is sold.
I don't blame the builders at all, the only thing you can do is sell the house and then approach the builders again with the cash, thats the thing as your not really a viable buyer until you have the money, even some sellers won't accept your offer until your property is sold.
I am currently renting so i think i will be doing just that.
Sell my house then look for somewhere so i have the buying power cash buyers seem to have at present.
I have had no experience at all with new builds or builders only ever bought privately so I genuinely thought this was strange.
Sell my house then look for somewhere so i have the buying power cash buyers seem to have at present.
I have had no experience at all with new builds or builders only ever bought privately so I genuinely thought this was strange.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
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Timber framed houses may be Ok where they were designed where the climate is a lot drier but over here they will be ****** in 10 years.
I'm also not stupid enough to think that anybody who has paid money for one will agree with me.
I haven't bought a house full stop, however what you're saying is flat out wrong. A well built timber framed house can last for all intents and purposes, indefinitely, a well built house won't suffer from wood that is constantly soaked in water and it won't rot, a poorly built house will suffer from rotting wood, a poorly built brick house in a wet climate will have all kinds of rotting, damp and other issues itself.
Well built timber houses can be excellent, also yeah, new houses can be completely crap, or they can be extremely good. All depends on the company, as in every industry and everywhere in the world some people build a company up to make great quality products, other guys cobble together complete crap and sell it to suckers. There are great, good, ok, meh and terrible new builds.
You can insulate brick houses very well but, meh, the prefab/super insulated/passive style builds are very tempting and my plan/dream is to build a house like that in the future.
Well i kinda of want to build a huge oak frame house with huge rooms ready built panels offsite makes the passive/cheap to run draft free house almost easy. As someone who suffers from terrible joints and gets incredible joint pain all winter long(where yesterday marked the start of a crappy winter of pain) a passive/draft free/warm house all winter couldn't be more appealing. I currently live in an old brick, little insulation, drafty piece of crap
i'm not so sure about this, it's a comparitevely new build method.
let's say a timber frame house is built and sold this year, to first time buyers, on a 25 year mortgage. over that time, say 10 years, the timber frame rots or warps to an extent, that the house is classed as inhabitable and can't get insurance or pass a survey for a mortgage?
i haven't seen enough long term evidence to convince me that a timber frame house is a solid investment or place to live.
Soldato
Considering that Scandanavia and northern countries like Germany have large expertise in timber frame housing, I would expect it would be very good for this climate.
I have lived in a part timber frame house and it was very good even where the timber frame was only protected from weather by render and membrane.
Factory produced timber frame units erected on site and clad with brick or concrete blocks would provide a very warm and draught free home.
I have lived in a part timber frame house and it was very good even where the timber frame was only protected from weather by render and membrane.
Factory produced timber frame units erected on site and clad with brick or concrete blocks would provide a very warm and draught free home.
Have you tried negotiating with the house builder along the lines of "We've had concrete offers of £X whereas your valuation is only £Y, is there any room for movement on the p/x deal as we are really keen to seal the deal and that would put us in a position to do so?".
Can't guarentee it will hold any weight though, the builders don't want to get stuck with a bunch of p/x housing. We part exchanged our house and the builder sold it on at just over a 10% 'loss' the same month (I say 'loss' but obviously we bought a house off them and some of that 'loss' may have been factored into the price we paid for our new home i.e. we might have got it cheaper had we not part exchanged).
As for the having to exchange within 28 days that's a new one on me, although in our case we did a p/x deal so it never came to that. It was the builder that was holding things up in the end, in fact it took over 3 months to complete so we had to resubmit our mortage change application.
Such a lot of crap in this thread 
There's nothing wrong with timber framed houses they are a traditional method of construction, today's are well insulated and are built quicker that's why they are cheaper, I'll poke my head out of the window and look at the 700 year old timber framed houses in my street, oh they'll rot in ten years pfft
What people compare new build to are 1930's houses which are yes solid but are damp, shrinking, cracking, need lateral restraint, poorly insulated and not very secure, only by chucking a load of money to one will you create something that is superior.
Scandinavians don't use Scandinavian timber any more most of it comes from Poland / Latvia etc
Local DIY stores are he most expensive places to buy fixtures and fittings
NHBC / Zurich guarantees are 10 or 12 years
No one builds houses out of traditional 7kn blocks any more so those saying I'll only buy a house in blockwork are actually buying 3kn thermalites which you could push a screwdriver into. 7kn blocks are only used in the structural walls of a block of flats with Bison planks in between.
MDF is not used in external walls, you probably mean sterling board
New methods I've used are SIPS and BECO wallform, if you think timber frame is useless have a look at them, the truth being energy efficiency is where the market want the investment, we are building at the moment passive flats in London that require one small oil filled radiator to heat the entire flat (av 100sqm) as the MVHR distributes heat around the home from your body / cooking and hot water, this is a concrete framed building so has high thermal mass staying cool in the summer, BASF PCM board in the walls to again cool in the heat and heat in the cold, 140mm SIPS external panels and K3 Kooltherm insualation and triple glazed Swedish Composite Windows. None of that lot is cheap it's all modern but if you want your blockwork walls and hefty energy bills then go for it.
Maccapacca
Chartered Surveyor MRICS
There's nothing wrong with timber framed houses they are a traditional method of construction, today's are well insulated and are built quicker that's why they are cheaper, I'll poke my head out of the window and look at the 700 year old timber framed houses in my street, oh they'll rot in ten years pfft
What people compare new build to are 1930's houses which are yes solid but are damp, shrinking, cracking, need lateral restraint, poorly insulated and not very secure, only by chucking a load of money to one will you create something that is superior.
Scandinavians don't use Scandinavian timber any more most of it comes from Poland / Latvia etc
Local DIY stores are he most expensive places to buy fixtures and fittings
NHBC / Zurich guarantees are 10 or 12 years
No one builds houses out of traditional 7kn blocks any more so those saying I'll only buy a house in blockwork are actually buying 3kn thermalites which you could push a screwdriver into. 7kn blocks are only used in the structural walls of a block of flats with Bison planks in between.
MDF is not used in external walls, you probably mean sterling board
New methods I've used are SIPS and BECO wallform, if you think timber frame is useless have a look at them, the truth being energy efficiency is where the market want the investment, we are building at the moment passive flats in London that require one small oil filled radiator to heat the entire flat (av 100sqm) as the MVHR distributes heat around the home from your body / cooking and hot water, this is a concrete framed building so has high thermal mass staying cool in the summer, BASF PCM board in the walls to again cool in the heat and heat in the cold, 140mm SIPS external panels and K3 Kooltherm insualation and triple glazed Swedish Composite Windows. None of that lot is cheap it's all modern but if you want your blockwork walls and hefty energy bills then go for it.
Maccapacca
Chartered Surveyor MRICS
Soldato
It is and had been for a long time.
Soldato
All those timber framed houses you see that are literally 300+ years old are well.... 300+ years old
Associate
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i rent a new build, and im pretty sure i could destroy the thing with my bare hands, thats how flimsy and poorly constructed it feels.
Caporegime
Our newbuild flat (2.5 years old) is fine. Came with a 5 year warranty on internals (including electrics and plumbing), and a 10 year NHBC for structural stuff.
Soldato
All those timber framed houses you see that are literally 300+ years old are well.... 300+ years old
i'm referring to mmc timber frame builds
Caporegime
I was brought up in a timber built new house (at the time) around 30 years ago, the whole estate still looks good and is standing, houses still changing hands for the right money. I know they were timber builds because we used to play in them at the weekends, jumping from the loft level to the ground floor which we had piled high with loft insulation bags 
The only bad thing they did on that estate was fit warm air heating, hateful way of heating a house.
The only bad thing they did on that estate was fit warm air heating, hateful way of heating a house.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
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- 33,188
You really just need to look at America, there are wooden houses that are several hundred years old all over the place that stand up brilliantly to weather/time, you have incredibly dry areas, wet areas, cold, warm and wooden houses do well everywhere. Wood doesn't rot if its generally dry, it won't rot instantly if it gets wet once, it will rot if it gets wet and isn't allowed to dry.
Wood houses can EASILY outlast the human lifespan, a poorly built woodhouse could crumble in years.... both things are true of brick houses. A terribly built brick house is incredibly vunerable to damp and water. You see brick houses whose foundations sink due to poor drainage or roof leaks causing water to sit in the wrong corner of the house. That can be good or bad houses, failing drainage can destroy a quality house or a rubbish house. Even the perfectly built house with the perfect drainage can over time run into trouble
I think these days the easiest built passive/best insulated houses are wood simple because weight wise you can build the panels off site, in a controlled enviroment where simply putting everything together becomes a lot easier, you have basically an entire factory floor dedicated to quality control and easy building, no weather issues and each panel is basically perfect. Wood is strong, incredibly durable, lightweight(relatively speaking) and pretty dang easy to work with.
I don't think wood is better than brick, I'm not sure there is a best building material, just people who know how to put together a great house and those who don't.
Probably the best thing you can do if you're buying a new house on a large new estate is find a building/surveyor friend, or friend of friend and have them look at some of the unfinished houses. You can put a near perfect finish on a completely awful structure and to the naked eye you wouldn't know the pitfalls of the house you are buying.
Wood houses can EASILY outlast the human lifespan, a poorly built woodhouse could crumble in years.... both things are true of brick houses. A terribly built brick house is incredibly vunerable to damp and water. You see brick houses whose foundations sink due to poor drainage or roof leaks causing water to sit in the wrong corner of the house. That can be good or bad houses, failing drainage can destroy a quality house or a rubbish house. Even the perfectly built house with the perfect drainage can over time run into trouble
I think these days the easiest built passive/best insulated houses are wood simple because weight wise you can build the panels off site, in a controlled enviroment where simply putting everything together becomes a lot easier, you have basically an entire factory floor dedicated to quality control and easy building, no weather issues and each panel is basically perfect. Wood is strong, incredibly durable, lightweight(relatively speaking) and pretty dang easy to work with.
I don't think wood is better than brick, I'm not sure there is a best building material, just people who know how to put together a great house and those who don't.
Probably the best thing you can do if you're buying a new house on a large new estate is find a building/surveyor friend, or friend of friend and have them look at some of the unfinished houses. You can put a near perfect finish on a completely awful structure and to the naked eye you wouldn't know the pitfalls of the house you are buying.
Man of Honour
Fair comment & good advice.