buying new - why is it so bad?

gkinrade

On the estate where we currently live the developer is marketing a particular model of house for £212,000 brand new, despite somebeody selling one privately 50 yards down the road which is only a year or two old for £180,000 - you need to be really aware of horribly overpriced houses! Also snagging lists are an essential

GDB2222

Doozergirl wrote: »

If you can cope with the layout, three storey houses do provide decent value for money when you consider the square footage inside them. I'm not keen on the the ones with integral garages and some layouts are odd, but I like them, I've owned one with a perfect layout for us, which I loved, and rented another. For an extra £20,000 you'd get 50% more floor space than people across the road in a two storey. Makes sense if you want a big house on a budget.

We bought a house on 3 floors, and the stairs are not a problem - in fact, looking positively, they provide some exercise.

lowtidesurf

Like I said before, most of the problems metioned above are with large development companys who do tend to rip you off. Esp first time buyers with there catchy 30% deposits.

But the build quality of these houses is awful. Went to llok at a near by development for decoration ideas from there show home and the build quality was awful. Joists seen in corner of the rooms, Wonky banasters, flaky paint, the list goes on and on.
I know these things are considered normal with a older house but when your buying a new house , please.

Just glad Im buying from a small developer. Theres 4 houses on my development and built to the highest quality. Hence why we bought

gabyjane

GDB2222 wrote: »

Did you pay the same for yours as your friend did for his? Are the locations comparable? It does sound like your friend bought a pup, though.

No we paid more BUT being both SO ours actually worked out cheaper as she had to spend around £15k alone on it to get it livable (courtesy of mum and dad!) her area is not where i would want to live..awful rd..no parking 90% of the time very overlooked..more than us anyway!..what is a pup?

gabyjane

I think some people tar them all with the same brush which tbh is not fair. I have lived in what was a new build (15 years odl) before this one and tbh although it was smaller than this it wasn't built badly. It was in a nice close with big fences so not overlooked etc and other than the fact we wanted to own we may still be there now!

We have lots of green areas round on our development, there are sculptures carved out of wood dotted around and it's lovely..lots of trees etc..i love it!

The sound proofing on ours is great, never hear a thing when the windows are shut (or usually open!) the walls can't be that thin as in the 2 years we have been here we have heard our neighbour prob twice if that..other side is detatched so not a prob but very good sound wise

We have had no issues with walls, paint, flooring etc (the only thing i don't like at times is my noisy dd with her friends as she has a wooden bedroom floor-our fault! but unless you are in the kitchen you can't here the elephants!

We had a loft conversion bloke round last night, he was saying what a nice house it was, he seemed to have the impression as came across a bit ''oh they are nice size rooms aren't they' that they are small etc and said that the 2 bedrooms were great..when he had measured up etc he said the loft will look fab (of course he will though!) if we decide to do and again will be a lovely sized house..guessing if he thought it was rubbish etc he would have said or kept his mouth shut, not said how nice it was!.

Like i said we may be lucky or the quality has improved..they shouldn't all be classed as rubbish though.

tek-monkey

As stated previously, it depends on the builders. I know of a few decent new builds round here, only normally in plots of 6-10 though, which are quite nice. Then there is the larger developments, one place my cousin lived in you could here people shagging 2 houses away! We know this cos next door was vacant at the time.

JasX

I bought a new build 2 years back, was lucky to find one in a small development (16 units), good sized rooms in a great location, most importantly tho -> built with proper bricks + slate roof.

Alot of these 'new' blocks are covered in metal panels / other materials that really are not durable and start looking tatty & needing replacing after 5-20 years, let alone 50+, 99+, 120+ the leases run for.... thats what I think destroys their value so quickly.