move to a newbuild property. . more pro's or more con's ?

DAREDEVIL78

hi, my wife and i have recently inquired as to purchase a new build 3 bedroom townhouse via persimmon homes, we own our current 2 bed first home and owe £60k to date on the mortgage with roughly £10k+ equity in our house.

the new build house is currently advertised for £143k which seems high to me but either way we are at an early stage of inquiring.

persimmon homes offer their part exchange service but i wanted to know what members thoughts are on this sort of house move , is it as simple as part ex our house for the new house , find our funds to pay the balance and hey presto . . . or am i missing something i am yet to find out ???

thoughts or advice would be gratfully listened to.

Winkle1908

I imagine you will have less bargaining power if you go via a part ex route. If it was me and I thought that i'd be able to sell my house I'd sell then buy seperately if that was an option, you'll probably get more for your house and a bigger reduction/better plot.

Just be careful with new builds regarding the quality, insist on going to view the house you are buying before you exchange on anything. Don't have many Persimmon estates round here so don't know how they compare with Bellway/David Wilson etc. We have a bellway that is a few years old so not bought new and there seems to be some sloppy workmanship, nothing major though!

caeler

I've just agreed a part exchange deal this weekend with the persimmon group. October is the time to do it as their year end is December and on developments which have struggled to sell, the buyer is in a strong position.

I've PX and lost 6% on what I paid originally 2 years ago from the same developer, but got way more than I lost off the list price of the new property. It's a bit of a game and the developer made it quite clear how much negotiating power I really had.

As I've already had one new build from them, I know exactly what I'm getting and I've been very happy with build quality and assistance post sale.

Good luck!

Miss_Ratty

My own experience is that new builds are not great quality and lose value quickly once lived in. Persimmon were a nightmare, we had three pages of snagging which took me going to their sales offices and warning people not to buy anything as they came through the door to get their site manager to fix things. This included ridiculous stuff like an upside down plug...yes, seriously! And doors which didn't fit so we couldn't close them including the front door!

Buy with caution, and don't pay the full price. We were first time buyers and were gutted to find out everyone else paid much less than we did. And be thorough with snagging and stand up to them to get it sorted. We weren't the only ones with the problems, and I actually ended up doing snagging for quite a few neighbours.

New builds can be good, they are well insulated etc., but can be on the small side...check measurements!

My ex retained our flat when we split up, and it's value decreased from the 125k we paid for it, to asking prices now of 85k. A lot in four years.

Good luck whatever you choose though, they can be lovely, but not always hassle free!

kandg

We started a part ex with David Wilson homes. All went very smoothly until the one we were exchanging for came in at 15k under their asking price. They wouldn't budge and advised up to keep paying £300 for a valuer who would agree with their asking price which we declined to do. As soon as we said no they never returned any calls or emails!! I felt that had it gone through it would have been very smooth and hassle free. Tip - find out when their financial year ends, you'll get a better deal.

Yorkie1

It is almost universally accepted that new builds depreciate as soon as you buy them; far better to go for a second hand property if you don't need the PX or all of the new build gadgets.

We are seeing on here quite a few covenants (restrictions) on what owners can do with their property (e.g. building conservatories) put on by the developer and which don't have an expiry date.

Be careful if the roads aren't yet adopted as sometimes there are difficulties in getting that part of the place completed.

Mickygg

Yorkie1 wrote: »

It is almost universally accepted that new builds depreciate as soon as you buy them; far better to go for a second hand property if you don't need the PX or all of the new build gadgets.

We are seeing on here quite a few covenants (restrictions) on what owners can do with their property (e.g. building conservatories) put on by the developer and which don't have an expiry date.

Be careful if the roads aren't yet adopted as sometimes there are difficulties in getting that part of the place completed.

I can't emphasise Yorkies last point enough. I moved a month ago after 6 years living in a brand new development. In my report it states 'it is intended for the council to adopt the road'.
The road has not been adopted due to complications and I almost lost my buyer due to this. The builders need to keep maintaining until sorted, however if they go bust then the road will be permanently private and therefore the area will only deteriorate.

vbwardy

We agreed a part exchange with Persimmon in April under the proviso that they would buy our house for an agreed price. Yet last week they retracted their offer as they still did not have a buyer for our house. So 6 months on despite spending almost 2k on fees, valuations, surveys and solicitors and even finishing touches for the new house we should have moved into in 6 weeks!!! They accept they have gone against their word but because we hadn't yet exchanged contracts they had no legal obligation and have left us high and dry. If you really want to px I would say get everything in writing and exchange asap (we did try to exchange early on but persimmon kept delaying) remember they are there to make money .......it could be at your expense!

hazyjo

Also bear in mind that if it's a large development and properties don't sell, they may well be sold to housing associations/affordable housing orgs.

Are you looking at one of the first to sell, or one of the last?

Jx

chica79

I agreed a part exchange with persimmon in June, we were supposed to exchange contracts this Friday 2nd November as they had phoned to say the property was complete last week. Last night 29th Oct Persimmon telephoned to say they were pulling out of the part exchange as the property had not sold and unless we couls re-mortgage on a buy to let it wasn't going any further. We had arranged to move next week, all packed, new furniture bought etc. We are feeling slightly wounded and know we can do nothing about it!

bret_cooper

We part exchanged at the end of last year to a site which was nearly completed and only a handful of houses left. Although they couldn't offer the price we wanted for our house but they reduced the new house to what we could afford, The only issue was that they wanted to get the the completion stage within 28 days which was stressful. When we put a deposit down the house was nearly built and we regularly went to the house at the weekends to see the progress. The snagging list was not to bad but the builder is coming back on Tuesday to finish of the last bits. After we exchanged it took them 6 months to sell our old house which they reduced by quite a bit. Apart from the length of time it has taken for the snagging, we must have been lucky as we had a nightmare with Barretts on our first new house