new build homes

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Would I have a new build Yes, Yes I would. Ive lived in one for 10+ years and it was fine. I live in one that I rented for a year and it was fine. Ive bought my own place and its a old building 100+ years old which has been converted into flats. My current place has been more trouble with damp, leaks and is not as efficient to heat etc.

New builds are cheaper, greener, simple and have a warranty. Its almost like buying a new car... There is normally no chain either. At the end of the day you look round one before you buy, if you dont like it then dont buy.
 
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New build properly insulated and cheap to run.

Old house cold, draughty, and costs a fortune to heat.
 
New builds are made out of paper and custard, and are so small you cant swing an ant in one.

Often the kitchen, bathroom will fall apart in no time, and the plumbing with push fit pipes are the cheapest you can get, and they will fail!!!

But at the end of the day, its your dosh and your choice.
 
'Harry said:
New build - lots and lots of plaster board, which means minimal sound insulation throughout the house.

Always go old but properly built houses. Just have cash in the bank for repairs. If you want to hear what the neighbor is watching on the telly they're great...

Maybe I'm spoiled here in France. Exterior walls are 2 foot thick stone, and interior are 1 foot thick stone walls. No plasterboard in sight (except a few extra bathrooms we've put in).
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New builds are good for eco rating, but terrible for sound insulation (snorers can be heard house-wide, as can TV and video games). Walls are paper thin and some cannot even support mounted TVs unless installed very carefully.

Garages are a token gesture - barely able to hold a mountain bike, let alone a car bigger than a Matchbox motor.

They have tiny plot sizes and often run into grounds problems (drainage, grass dying, weed propagation etc) more frequently than established houses.

Parking car/s is often a big issue and you'll find leaving it on the kerb/road is the best option as the driveway will be tiny and risk scuffing on the house or the neighbour's car.

Overpriced, underspecc'd and a real insult for the price that new builds attract.
 
I bought a new build just coming up to 2 years ago. Thankfully the entire process was stress free (I part-exchanged my previous property).

I was expecting huge bodge-jobs and prepared for the worst, but thankfully... didn't have any!

One thing that is apparent, is that because each job is contracted out separately, there's no real "team work" going on and as a result, some of the overall finish wasn't great at all. One example of this was the vinyl flooring in my ensuite. Because the "sealer guy" came in immediately after the floor had been laid, it eventually caused issues with it contracting and screwing up around the edges. Other examples would be things like the ceiling lights being off-centre, again, due to the fact that they were put in after the ceiling had been done, so they pretty much made guess work out of it :/

But those things were added to my snag list and were fixed (eventually).

I've had to constantly pester the developers, which has been a real ball-ache. As the development which I'm in, is now 100% finished, they've pretty much lost interest it seems, and 2 years on, I'm still waiting for a satisfactory response to some outstanding items.

Sure, new builds aren't like "traditional" homes, they're all plasterboard and what not, but I was expecting this, and having previously lived in a newly converted flat, it wasn't anything new. Perhaps I care less because I'm in a detached home... I don't think living in a terraced new build would be too much fun, when it comes to sound isolation :D

Overall, my advise would be to check out other homes in the area before buying, speak to any residents if possible and definitely make sure you keep a well documented snag list (with photos!)

Would I buy another? Absolutely.
 
Funnily enough we actually spoke to a mortgage advisor yesterday evening and discussed many of the things being spoken about in this thread...

I had previously been put off of the equity-loan variant of the Help to buy scheme because I hated the idea of having an additional massive loan, but actually when you go through the figures it's far far better to have the equity loan but be on a 75% mortgage as opposed to going the other route with a 95% mortgage.

For us the difference in monthly payments is £700ish (less than we pay in rent right now by quite a bit) versus about £1,100ish based on borrowing similar amounts at those LTVs... The other point is that with the equity-loan version we can get a much more expensive new-build than we would with the alternative 95% mortgage, all whilst borrowing a lot less than the maximum we would be allowed

The equity-loan itself is quite a large sum but the repayment terms are really fairly good as far as a loan goes (5 years interest free then inflation + 1% each year after so for instance you'd add about £70 to a £50,000 loan after the 6th year) And as mentioned you could save towards it a little over the 5 years or even pull chunks of the equity loan back onto the mortgage after that once you've built up a bit more equity in the house itself

I think the most important point from my perspective though is that because the loan is not linked to the interest rate like the mortgage then should the worst-case scenario happen and the interest rate goes up by more than people are expecting, you can afford your monthly mortgage payments on the 75% mortgage for longer before it starts to become a problem; and even if/when it did become too much then you could just stop saving towards the equity loan while you ride it out and it wouldn't cause you any trouble. Comparing that to your situation on the 95% mortgage you would basically be completely stuffed if there was a significant rise

The only downside I guess is that you have to go new-build... I can see the advantages in some respects but a few comments here are a little concerning. Definitely planning to negotiate as hard as possible - we know for sure we can't go a penny over the £250k stamp-duty limit, but I'm thinking if I see a place about £260k-£280k I could give it a go bringing them down to that... maybe...

Edit: Anyone got any tips on the negotiating? :p
 
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uncle_rufus said:
The equity-loan itself is quite a large sum but the repayment terms are really fairly good as far as a loan goes (5 years interest free then inflation + 1% each year after so for instance you'd add about £70 to a £50,000 loan after the 6th year) And as mentioned you could save towards it a little over the 5 years or even pull chunks of the equity loan back onto the mortgage after that once you've built up a bit more equity in the house itself
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Nearly right but think you've missed a zero off.

On a £40 000 loan you are looking at roughly the following assuming RPI +1% = 6%.....
Year | Fee %age | Annual Fee
6 | 1.75% | £700
7 | 1.86% | £744
8 | 1.97% | £788
9 | 2.08% | £832
10 | 2.21% | £884

As you can see it's figures that are likely to encourage you pay back the loan either through money you have been able to save or through adding the debt to your mortgage when you remortgage.
 
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Del Lardo said:
Nearly right but think you've missed a zero off.

On a £40 000 loan you are looking at roughly the following assuming RBI +1% = 6%.....
Year | Fee %age | Annual Fee
6 | 1.75% | £700
7 | 1.86% | £744
8 | 1.97% | £788
9 | 2.08% | £832
10 | 2.21% | £884

As you can see it's figures that are likely to encourage you pay back the loan either through money you have been able to save or through adding the debt to your mortgage when you remortgage.
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Is that right? Could it be that the £70ish I was thinking of is some slightly manipulated figure in the sense of "The difference between the inflation on its own and inflation with the 1% added"?
 
I think he means per month. Your still saving a fortune by using the equity loan - as I mentioned, I'm saving around £250 a month on mortgage payments by using the help to buy scheme.
 
Jano said:
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.
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Not incorrect. New builds get a premium for being new. As soon as they are bought they lose value. In a best case scenario they may gain a limited amount but properties in the area will gain more. This issue with new builds losing value is why banks are super stricted on lending on them. They lose their new selling point.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/09/15/buying-a-newly-built-home-is-it-a-good-idea/
http://www.moneywise.co.uk/home-mortgage/buying/how-to-buy-new-build-property
 
delta0 said:
Not incorrect. New builds get a premium for being new. As soon as they are bought they losevalue. In a best case scenario they may gain a limited amount but properties in the area will gain more. This issue with new builds losing value is why banks are super stricted on lending on them. They lose their new selling point.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/09/15/buying-a-newly-built-home-is-it-a-good-idea/
http://www.moneywise.co.uk/home-mortgage/buying/how-to-buy-new-build-property
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How is it not incorrect? You've said all new builds lose money, when they obviously all don't.
 
Jano said:
How is it not incorrect? You've said all new builds lose money, when they obviously all don't.
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They do lose money unless you hold on to them for a long time. Banks used to demand a much larger deposit on them because of this (now everything needs a large deposit). They are a pain in the @$$ to sell on and can have a lot of issues such as noise, parking and drainage. Losing the new selling point is a big hit.

http://www.independent.co.uk/money/mortgages/buyers-beware-of-newbuild-home-headaches-2277291.html
 
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Again, case in point, my New build house, less than 6 months old, has already gained value by over £10000. There was a long waiting list for 2 beds when I bought it, and some of the previous new builds (around a year old) on the development have already sold at a profit of over £30,000.
 
Thought I'd throw my experiences into the ring here. My partner and I moved into a new build property in Cambridgeshire (Taylor Wimpey) back in October. There were a couple of issues when we moved, mainly cosmetic and all fixed in good time (often on the day we reported since the area is an active site).

The only things I can complain of over the last few months is shrinkage (no way around this and not a quality issue) and a tap which has started dripping in my kitchen.

With regards to the build itself, and keep in mind that this is going to be specific to my site. I paid £225k for a three story three bed end of terrace. I can only hear my neighbours if they move furniture around upstairs or if they're hammering on walls. The rooms are of an excellent size, main bedroom is collosal and second bedroom bigger than the average master bedroom. Obviously things like carpets etc aren't of fantastic quality but I only wanted them in to last for the first few years (exception is the bathroom tiles which appear to be of excellent quality).

Buying a new build isn't for everbody, it was attractive to us as it took 5 years off the amount of time we would have needed to save for (equity loan), and given that I have no realy plans to move anytime soon the initial drop in value, especially with the real estate in the area being robust, doesn't phase me.

The only real let down is the garden which is tiny, other plots in the area have larger gardens but most seem to be on the small side at best.

My advice would be to look at every aspect of the build and site. Particularly look at the plans for the area, scrutinise parking particularly, you may have adequate facilities but will neighbours have to use the street? This is okay at the moment where I am but areas near by are very congested with on street parking.

Generally the regulation around new builds tightens year on year and in my opinion quality is improving drastically due to this. But it also really depends on your builder, and I don't mean the company, I mean the specific site crew on the build, for my phase they drafted a guy who had won awards on some of their other developments over to site manage.
 
Jano said:
Again, case in point, my New build house, less than 6 months old, has already gained value by over £10000. There was a long waiting list for 2 beds when I bought it, and some of the previous new builds (around a year old) on the development have already sold at a profit of over £30,000.
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Twyford is near Wokingham, so it's probably a special case due to close proximity to London.
 
uncle_rufus said:
Is that right? Could it be that the £70ish I was thinking of is some slightly manipulated figure in the sense of "The difference between the inflation on its own and inflation with the 1% added"?
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Could be a monthly figure? Worth noting that RPI +1% figure of 6% that was used is very likely to be higher than what you would actually pay as average RPI for the last 20 years is 2.55% with it maxing out at 4.1% in in 2010 & 2011. Still better to look at a likely worst case scenario (obviously it could go far higher, it hit 25% in 1975) to make sure you are not over extending.
 
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