New build, not cheap but nasty?

Ed_Zep

Given the choice, I would always go for an older house (with a full structural survey).
Apart from being something that lasts, they just "feel" better to live in.

sillylittlejill

Something I've found with family living in new builds is that they have a scary amount of spiders and other various bugs, so thats one good reason to buy an older house!!

xx

roses

sillylittlejill wrote: »

Something I've found with family living in new builds is that they have a scary amount of spiders and other various bugs, so thats one good reason to buy an older house!!

xx

My Victorian house gets mice in the kitchen!

PasturesNew

I had an old house, it was damp, draughty, had 100 years of bodge jobs lurking, waiting to be found, there were HUUGE centipedes that would run across the kitchen floor when it rained, a bird came down the chimney when I was away for a week - shat everywhere and died under the sofa.

There were always bits falling off and bits that needed fixing. None of the walls were straight, nothing was straight.

The rooms were bigger though.

Paley71

We looked at new builds (lower priced 3 beds) and the thing that struck us is the way they all seem very crammed together and overlooked...we almost felt like we were on a campsite waiting to be allocated our caravan and parking space!

molit

Just moved from a new build, which I lived in for 2 years, to a 60s house. Within half an hour of moving in, I felt more at home in the 60s house, with its vile wallpaper, luminous carpets, holes in floors etc...

Fat_Fairy

:cool: well we didn't have a choice, really, due to circumstances we needed a shared equity housing association home on one level, and it was a new build, built by a small local firm.

The finish is good, give or take a few silly little details, we have nice solid wooden interior doors and the house is lovely and light. The gardens are both quite large, particularly the back one, which was a nice suprise, and we have a long drive that will happily take 2 large cars when we have visitors :T .

Those 'plastic' type roof tiles seem to be the norm round here now, and we live in a very, very windy place (northern isles) so they must be pretty substantial .

I think people buy new houses because they are 'clean', and (hopefully) low maintenance, waterproof and airtight!. We always loved older properties, but, having lived in 2 very old cottages, changed our minds somewhat after waking up to water coming through the rooves (yes, it happened in both places!), having to humanely trap mice, and constantly removing what seemed to be Genetically Modified spiders! (so huge! :eek: ).

On the minus side, with our new build, the bedrooms are ridiculously small (we would have happily given up some garden space for larger bedrooms!) The 'third bedroom' is 2.5 metres by 3.2 metres, and has a huge built-in wardrobe, making it pretty much impossible to fit furniture in it. We've had to get rid of a lot of our 'stuff' and replace with smaller/space saving designs, which was an unexpected outlay.

On the plus side, the house is so warm and energy efficient (running radiators off a condensor boiler), even up here in the Northern Isles we rarely have the heating on for more than a few hours max even on the coldest winter day :j . A bit different to our last cottage where I had to shovel the snow off the coal bunker and clean out the fire every day before nursing the fire and then waiting for an hour or so for the radiators and water to heat up! (the whole thing ran off the multi fuel stove :mad: ).

poppysarah

roses wrote: »

My Victorian house gets mice in the kitchen!

You do know mice constantly wee everywhere?

shirlgirl2004

Give me a 1930s house any day. You get decent size rooms & gardens without major maintenance issues unless the property has been neglected.

mark5

I would never swap my 4 bed detached new build for a older property.

A few friends have older properties which have cost a lot more to maintain and heat over the last 3 years than mine.

None of these older houses of friends have bigger rooms than mine apart from the hallways of 2 of them.

My garden is not overlooked and backs on to fields. I have a garage plus driveway for 3 cars. ( only 2 cars so not a problem so far)

You pay a premium for a new build for the new kitchen, bathrooms, en suites, windows, boilers, roofs, carpets,electrics, plumbing, plastering and all the other jobs that normally end up needing replacement or repair when you buy an older property.

If my house does only last 75 years, 75-3 + 29= 101 years old, I will be in a old peoples home and it will be one less thing the government can claim to pay for my care!