Are new builds really that bad?? Everyone is warning me off them

katejo

bclark wrote: »

And rows of Victorian terraces are really individual?

Yes actually they often are . My front room was knocked through to create 1 living room before I bought it but my neighbours still have separate rooms and a downstairs bathroom. I have original coving and decorative plaster in my living room and hallway.

bclark

katejo wrote: »

Yes actually they often are . My front room was knocked through to create 1 living room before I bought it but my neighbours still have separate rooms and a downstairs bathroom. I have original coving and decorative plaster in my living room and hallway.

Yeah sometimes they are different, give it 5 years and a fair few new builds will have walls knocked through, extended rooms etc.

Original coving etc doesn't make it individual, again most houses in that row will have them.

I say all of this as the current owner of a lovely Victorian semi but it does make me laugh when people criticise new builds when 'period' houses were essentially the same in their day.

DRP

bclark wrote: »

Yeah sometimes they are different, give it 5 years and a fair few new builds will have walls knocked through, extended rooms etc.

Original coving etc doesn't make it individual, again most houses in that row will have them.

I say all of this as the current owner of a lovely Victorian semi but it does make me laugh when people criticise new builds when 'period' houses were essentially the same in their day.

Indeed. Our victorian house was obviously 'thrown up' with no foundations to speak of and with wooden lintels.

But victorian features are usually of high quality and sought after these days... give it a few decades and stud partitions, shared driveways and solar panels will be sought after 'features'...

geoffky

No one has said they have bought a crap house...Well i did when i was younger..A new build built by barrets...Biggest load of crap i ever set my eyes on....Could hear next door having sex the walls were that thin....I grew to hate the house..

lessonlearned

I bought a Victorian cottage, circa 1890 and could hear the neighbours having sex. :eek:

Plainly it has nothing to do with the age of the property, rather in the way it is built.

My solution was to pay for extra sound insulation.

gld73

I bought a new build house for the first time last year, and have had no more and no fewer problems than with my 4 previous (not new build) houses. It's a 3 storey townhouse, with good size rooms, the only problem (common to some new builds depending on how the estate is planned) is that the houses and flats all have 1 garage (no drive) OR 1 parking space allocated; apparently this was meant to discourage car ownership and we would all take the bus everywhere. In reality, the majority of the houses are 2 car households and so the road is always crowded with cars.

But the house itself is fine, turf and fridge/freezer were included but I had to pay for carpets. For the size of the house, the price was actually on a par with non new-builds in the area (though they have driveways for parking!). It may have helped that it was a smaller developer (Eden Stone) rather than one of the big national builders.

So overall, if you like a particular new build property and aren't bothered by the lack of charm and character that you'd get from a victorian or edwardian one, I'd say don't rule it out just because some people knock them.

ilnf

OP, you say the newbuild house is bigger than 'older' houses for sale. Just double check it is using actual measurements (if you haven't already).

Empty properties always look more spacious and showrooms have been know to use 'shrinking furniture' (not full size sofas, beds, wardrobes etc) to appear larger. I've also been to a showroom that had no internal doors - put them on and when you open a small bedroom you realise how small it really is!

Ignore this comment if you've done your homework

Furts

gld73 wrote: »

I bought a new build house for the first time last year, and have had no more and no fewer problems than with my 4 previous (not new build) houses. It's a 3 storey townhouse, with good size rooms, the only problem (common to some new builds depending on how the estate is planned) is that the houses and flats all have 1 garage (no drive) OR 1 parking space allocated; apparently this was meant to discourage car ownership and we would all take the bus everywhere. In reality, the majority of the houses are 2 car households and so the road is always crowded with cars.

But the house itself is fine, turf and fridge/freezer were included but I had to pay for carpets. For the size of the house, the price was actually on a par with non new-builds in the area (though they have driveways for parking!). It may have helped that it was a smaller developer (Eden Stone) rather than one of the big national builders.

So overall, if you like a particular new build property and aren't bothered by the lack of charm and character that you'd get from a victorian or edwardian one, I'd say don't rule it out just because some people knock them.

It is possible I was in discussion with your local authority about five years ago regarding building a new family home.

The scenario was to demolish a four bed detached house complete with the detached double garage and double drive. The house was condemned as life expired and unfit for habitation. It had stood for 15 years. This answers some posts on the standard of new building!

The planners approach was: A plot deemed suitable for one house in 1986 should now have two houses, if not three. If a family house was built there must be no more than 1.5 car parking spaces for a drive. The garage must be to take only a single car. The garage must be integral with the house.

This was a retrograde step, but confirms posts made earlier regarding planning constraints on builders.

Access to the new drive would be difficult, but the Highways Department had no hesitation. They said it would be OK to put a drive through their five metre wide verge, then use this for parking!

I suspect the authority had targets to meet and was prepared to pull strings to ensure they were met.

leveller2911

lessonlearned wrote: »

Developers have far less of a free hand than
you might imagine. They have to work very closely with the planning authorities.






For example - the affordable housing issues. Developers have to comply with
rules on this. A certain percentage of the development - dependent on it's size
- will have to be given over to affordable housing.

I think they changed the rules this year and the obligation of building 3.5 Social Housing per 10 private houses built (dependant on volume) has been scrapped,so there is no obligation to build any Social Housing.

The same applies to schools and amenities. On large schemes it is the house
builders who have to stump up for a large proportion of the cost. Saves the
local authority the money.........

Ashford in Kent has grown hugely in the last 15 years or so and on the plans that were put forward to build thousands of home they were also going to build a new secondary school,a number of doctors surgeries,communuity centre etc and to date they have build something like 6000 homes built in 12 years but no new doctors surgeries, no new school, no community centre in fact none of the "community" projects have been built.

Ultimately it's down to money and planning constraints.

I don't think there are any planning constrictions on some developments, its a building free for all...........Building lots of poor quality,overpriced rabbit hutches with no infrastructure.

In general larger developers are like locusts they turn up make a mess and then move on ........

Dan-Dan

^^^^

Certainly the case in LB as well....thousands of new homes crammed together...not so much as a sweet shop in sight