new build homes

  • Thread starter Thread starter GeX
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Doesn't particularly matter if the house is detached, I'd say.

Old house or not, I'll never move into another semi or terrace house again after the nightmare of noise from next door that this one's been. Just much too at the mercy of whoever moves in, with nothing you can do about it.
 
GeX said:
It's interest free for 5 years, and with expected salary increases (hell even without) we'd be able to pay it back by putting money aside every month - and it means that the money we're spending on rent atm goes into paying our mortgage - not someone elses!
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You cant rely on expected salary increases though and if you have not been able to put aside enough for a deposit before getting a mortgage how can you guarantee you will be able to do so after getting one so you can pay off the loan? That's my worry with all these schemes. They seem to tempt people into positions that could go quite wrong.
 
itchy said:
New build never :mad:

Give me 100 year old character house than a plaster board box anyday!! :D

Damp included. :p
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Couldnt agree more, I much prefer my wonky floors, odd shaped doors, and damp :D oh and the garden that's considerably bigger than the plant pot you get on new builds!
 
JRJ said:
Couldnt agree more, I much prefer my wonky floors, odd shaped doors, and damp :D oh and the garden that's considerably bigger than the plant pot you get on new builds!
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Yep, It is a case of mixed blessings. (I cant even get insurance|)

But I love my 18th century property (Some of it is a lot older!) too.

I'd rather go to prison than live in a modern new build!
 
I can see this H2B policy turning in to a financial Fiasco just like PPI in a few years time, and the people who took these loans out will be blaming all and sundry when things go wrong.

Apart from themselves that is.

Ask yourself what price these houses would have to be in order to sell without this scheme, because the developers would have to charge a price that people could afford out of their own pocket, not a subsidised one. Not to mention that average wages are not keeping up with inflation & most interest rates are at a 300 year record low (and can only ever realistically go up from here and over the course of a potential mortgage).
 
We bought a new build house last year. We looked at older houses in the area but they all had significant disadvantages (e.g. the smallest bedroom was the size of a shoe box).

In the end we found a new build with the same square foot area but that used the space a lot better. Every bedroom is a decent size so we've got enough space for a study each. The house also has all of the mod-cons: solar heating, underfloor heating, Ethernet ports in every room, ceiling speakers controlled by a Sonos system...

It was built by a smaller developer so might not be relevant to your search. Do I prefer new builds or old builds? It really comes down to the individual property IMO.
 
I don't know if it's true or not but I heard they usually have custom built furniture that's slightly smaller than normal to make the rooms look bigger.
 
Our current (and first non-rented) house is a new build.

Miller Homes developed an area of land within the village we used to live in and put 30 new build homes on it. We rented for 12 months in one of the affordable houses whilst the site was being finished and got to know the developer/site manager very well.

We put in an offer on the last house available significantly lower than the asking price on the basis of using their 20% deposit contribution scheme.

Given I work within the construction industry it helped that I had a pretty good grasp (and even better contacts) on the costs associated with having to keep the cabins etc on site and built this into my offer.

I have generally been very impressed with the quality of the building itself, both from a build and fit out point of view. There were very few snags or latent defects to pick up. There had been very little movement over the last 3 years, and the house has been maintenance free other than planned/preventative maintenance. Most of the downstairs walls are solid (breeze block with dot and dab plasterboard) and the upstairs is plasterboard.

The area where Millers appear to have cut corners is externally. The levels to the rest of the plot are poorly thought out, I regularly find rubble when digging more than a foot down, and the fencing was poorly installed. On the plus side I got a free landscaping scheme and have decked over a 1/3rd of the garden!

A few things worth considering:
- New builds are very unlikely to appreciate in value in the short/medium term so make sure you get a very good deal/plan to stay there for a long time
- Treat the 20% as part of your mortgage when working out if you can afford to buy the house. Pay installments to yourself on a monthly basis, or set up share schemes etc to ensure it will be paid when required.
- If the development is large, or there is a lot of brownfield space around you, consider whether you will be able to sell x years down the line if the developer is on phase 3 or 4 and you are competing with them selling brand new houses with discount incentives
- Think through everything about the development / house / plot in as much detail as possible. Assume that nobody has thought it through properly and imagine how you will use the house. It's amazing how many thoughtless / poor decisions are made in terms of the locations of services, access routes, socket positions, lighting positions etc.
- Get photos of the house during construction. I wasn't able to as we bought it already built, but having photos of where every cable in every wall if can prove useful!
- Push for vouchers to spend on fixtures/fittings. Things like carpets and landscaping cost them a pittance as they will likely have subcontractors on their books
- Pick up as much as possible on your walk rounds. It's amazing what you can get the developer to do if you ask nicely and have a genuine reason!
 
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I am in the process of buying a New Build using the Help to Buy scheme with Mrs DL to be as for us it worked but there are a number of things to consider:

Is the house actually fit for purpose?
We had been looking for about 6 months and spent quite a bit of time looking at new builds, one thing that struck us with Bovis, Bryant and Taylor Wimpey was that rooms, especially bedrooms were tiny. As an example when standing in the master bedroom of a 'large' 4 bed house I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong until I realised that there was a 5ft long bed shown and when I got my tape measure out I realised that a King Size bed in the room would result in you not being able to open/close the door. Many other examples including master bedrooms that had no space for storage, dining rooms that you couldn't fit a dining room table into and childrens rooms that could just about fit a bed but none of their clothes or toys. Finally we stumbled across one of the smaller national builders who go for quality not quantity and walked out of the house with smiles on our faces for the first time as all the rooms and the garden were good sizes.

Show homes are expertly dressed but think about how you would actually use the room both now and for the period of time you plan on living there.


Is a New Build good value compared to older house?
One of the criticisms I've heard levelled is that New Builds are poor value compared to older houses so spend some time learning your local market. I can only comment on the Cambridge area but as an example we are paying 3% more compared to a similar sq foot 1960s property in the same village and for that we are getting a far more efficient house that doesn't need the central heating ripping out and replacing in a couple of year and a 10 year guarantee. We decided that it was a premium worth paying though others may not feel the same.


Why are you looking to use the Help to Buy scheme?
For us we had the choice of buying a 3 year house and expecting to move and pay 3% Stamp Duty for a 2nd time in a 3 year period whilst our ideal sized home was increasing in value, possibly out of our range or use the scheme to buy a 10 year house and avoid the hassle of moving, paying a 2nd lot of stamp duty and knowing that we own (kind of) a home that we want to stay in. However by going for the more expensive home now it does put more pressure on the next question......


How to do plan to repay the 20% loan?
As per the question above, if you don't have a decent deposit saved how do you expect to pay the 20% loan back, it is interest free for 5 years but after that you will have to pay interest which on a £200 000 house/£40 000 loan would be about £600/year. One person we spoke to plans on remortgaging after 5 years based on equity paid off in that period and likely increase in house value, certainly not something that we would be comfortable with and a big part of our financial planning was to make sure we could comfortably pay off the existing value of the 20% loan in 4 years giving us an extra year to take into account.....


You do realise that the government owns 20% of your house?
This isn't a fixed value loan so if you borrow £40 000 to fund a £200 000 house and in 5 years when you want to pay off the loan your house is valued at £250 000 you actually have to pay back £50 000. It works the same way if the value of your home goes down the the government is taking a bet as well but certainly something worth thinking about. It also means that if you sell the house, even 1 year down the line you have to repay 20% of the sale price and if the Help to Buy scheme isn't available then you could find yourself having to take a step down the property ladder as all of a sudden you don't have the help.


You will see by the replies in this thread that a lot of people are very cynical about the scheme and I can understand why, I think it will encourage some people to overextend themselves if they don't plan how to repay the loan properly and in some areas it could allow homes to sell at inflated prices. I can only say that it seems to work for us based on my increasingly convoluted Excel sheet and independent advice from a few sources including an IFA (who had nothing to do with the builder) and parents.
 
Most new builds I viewed around West London were uninspiring and looked like IKEA showrooms. Also their windows were smaller. I went for a flat built properly in 1970 and then renovated it. Was cheaper than buying a new build and done 100% to my customisation.

Not a fan of new build estates personally.
 
I have been in a new build house for coming up 3 years in June.

Persimmon homes in the North East. I love my house but we have had issues with several things over the time of owning it so far.

Worst problem we had was the tiles in the en suite shower were not sealed properly so started sucking up water and changed colour. They could not source replacement tiles from the same batch so ended up having to tear all the tiled areas off, replace the plasterboard and re-tile. Took about 3 days to have all the work done and since has not been a problem.

The boiler died 3 weeks outside of the 2 year warranty and no matter how hard we shouted they would not do any thing about it - having a new born baby at the time meant I could not continue to argue and had to get it fixed privately.

The house is detached, so hearing the neighbours is not an issue at all. The garden is a good size and the heating bills are very low due to the house being so well insulated.

The only thing I dislike about our site/plot is the car parking situation, everyone these days has 2 cars (or more in 2 houses cases) and the street is quite narrow so everyone is constantly battling for parking spaces for the 2nd cars.

I did not use the home buy deal, but I did part ex with the builders, and that was the main reason we ended up with a new build.

After some negotiation, they ended up agreeing to pay us 10k more than we had it on the market for so we could afford the deposit to buy their house, it was obviously a loss they were willing to take to make the sale, and from our perspective we sold our 2 bed easily and could live in it while the house was built for us.

Also, It is a 3 storey house, with my office in the loft, once we had agreed to the sale I spoke to the site manager who agreed to put in conduit that I supplied, running from the corner of my office to the corner of the living room with blanking plates on.

when I moved in all I had to do was use the pulley to pull some cat5e through and change the plates and the living room was ready for the htpc. If you want to do things like that, its worth asking and they can be quite accomodating.

Good luck :)
 
when we were house hunting, we looked at a few new builds, whilst they are very attractive, they just seem to lack the "basic" things you'd expect from a solid built house. Plasterboard.... plasterboard everywhere! lack of insulation, generally built very very quickly too which just worries me, and from personal experience. the plumbing in these places is terrible!

I think they tend to be stupidly small as well as expensive. If your after a nice garden too, then you have next to no chance unless you pay a fortune.

New Build: 2 (1 double) bedroom, 1 bathroom, small kitchen diner, living room, shared driveway, box garden - around here was around £130-145k. (Barratt)
Our 1930's Build: 3 Bedrooms (2 double), 2 Bathrooms, huge kitchen diner, living room, double drive way + double garage - was £125k.

Don't get me wrong, they are really nice houses etc, but you can get so much more for your money if your patient.

I think all the schemes are very attractive and obviously help first time buyers get on the ladder etc.. but personally, I'm glad we waited longer and saved up for a larger deposit.
But... If you simply can't afford to save up the money for a larger deposit, then I'd probably go for it anyway, as they really aren't 'that bad'.
 
We bought a new build house (5 bed detached)

Pros:

Everything is new (Boiler, Kitchen, Appliances, Electrics, Shower etc etc)
Building regs (electric smoke alarm, alarm system, wiring, smoke door seals)
The smallest bedrooms are not box rooms
Ensuites

Cons:

Tiny Gardens
Tiny Driveways
Most are built right on the road (ie no front gardens)
Parking outside a nightmare
Plasterboard dot and dab walls (good for hiding TV and speaker cables though)
No scope for extensions (be 100% happy with the house forever!)

The thing is, if you are buying a new build you really need to negotiate hard.

We got

£50,000 knocked off the asking price
Landscaped Garden with fence
Curtains and carpets
Upgraded Kitchen
Alarm System

This was a part-ex for our old house, which they gave us 110% market value for

I was quite adamant that if I didnt get what I wanted I would walk away, you have to be quite firm. You also need to really look hard at the surround area. They cram them in these days, so think about what it will be like once all the houses are sold. Remember, most families have two cars, but most new builds only have a driveway big enough for one car. What will the area be like when everyone is parking their second car on the road? Things like that.

The most important thing though is resale value. New houses loose money in the short term. Example is our neighbour a few doors down. They sold three years after moving in and lost £50,000. They paid full asking price as well. There are websites which tell you how much houses sold for. Might be worth a look (especially if the development is coming to an end.)

Just found a house on our development

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-39029669.html

Purchase price for this style was £285,000, look what it's on the market for now!!! and they will obviously sell for less as every buyer negotiates a discount. This is a classic example of a new build property.
Big house by the looks of it.....but look closer. No dining room, no room for a conservatory, weird lounge layout and not THAT big to be honest.

Now compare it to this, an older house http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41264579.html?premiumA=true brilliant blank canvas, but obviously need a few grand to modernise it
 
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When I moved into my current place we looked at new builds and older properties. Whilst the older properties had the potential to be more solid most of the ones I saw within a reasonable budget were in areas which were not great and needed quite a bit of work (not just cosmetic). In the end we went for a new build as it just seemed a nicer house, in an area which was more convenient transport wise; the only downside being that I had to wait for 6 months for them to finish building it (I was being relocated for work so just continued working in my old office until I could move).

For the price it is reasonable (yes I could have got more space for less but then have to spend a lot more making things up to scratch); 3 bed-semi (2 double although it is just possible to fit a double in the single bedroom), family bathroom and ensuite on the master bedroom, separate lounge, dining room and kitchen. drive way and good sized garage. It's garden isn't huge but it's a reasonable size for the size of house. The January after I completed on the house new building regs were coming in on sound insulation between new build semis so the developer was building to the new regs as the third phase of the build was not going to be completed until after then and it was easier for them to use the same design through all three phases. Hence I haven't had any real sound issues with my neighbours. The area in general is very quiet (when my parents visit from rural Shropshire they say it's quieter here in an urban environment than it is where they live).

Value wise, an identical house a few doors down sold a couple of months ago for about 25% more than I paid for mine ... which I would be quite happy with getting for mine given that there has been the drops in prices in the period between when the houses were purchased and now.
 
New build owner here...Recently moved into a 5 bed Taylor Wimpey home. I got a good discount on the price plus upgraded kitchen and appliances, full flooring/carpets throughout and landscaped garden thrown in.
I like having everything new, a nice feeling. i agree with others though, walls are thin but i can't hear neighbours. House is warm and cheap to heat. Plus i like having the builders and contractors around as any issues they are quick to resolve. They have given me extra turf and slabs to complete little jobs i have wanted to do myself.
Overall i am happy with my new build.
 
delta0 said:
New builds always lose value over the first few years. Not to put you off, just worth knowing.
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Incorrect. Been in mine for less than 6 months and its already gone up in value by around £10000.

As others have said, it seems to be down to the developer and the site, but we certainly didn't pay any more than other similar houses in the area, have had no problems with the developer fixing any of the issues we've had. The site itself has been well planned, the house seems to be good quality, we have a large garden considering its a 2 bed semi detached, also have a drive with space for 3 cars.

Regarding the help to buy scheme, if we stay in the house for more than 5 years (very big if, I don't know too many people who stay in their first house that long), we already have savings to cover it. The difference in mortgage between using the scheme and not would have cost us around £250 a month, it was a complete no brainer.
 
You will always pay a premium for a new build and they are also notoriously difficult to sell on after a few years. They don't look quite as attractive when things aren't brand new, cars parked all over the street and without the financial schemes like HTB available.
 
I was always anti-new build being in the trade and knowing how a lot of these places go up.

Ended up buying a 2007 build in a internally gated estate and will complete next week. it's a coach house design which I was also never considering but once viewed really liked it, although it's not like most coach houses which is a flat on top of a garage it's actually a large two storey house above. Being gated it also doesn't have parking problems.

It was built by a smaller local developer and there is quite a difference between them and larger chains I terms of design and quality.
 
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