modern or old Houses!!! advice needed.

butch_dingle_2

wow - there seems to be very polar opinions on this thread, mostly coming from the anti new build people, who thinks its ok to spread lies and misinformation to support their cause.

For what its worth I have a new build house which I am very happy with.

The ceilings are high enough (i am 6ft 4in)
The walls arent made of cardboard (I think building regulations dont allow it)
My neighbours house is more than 6 inches away
MY E Class mercedes fits quite comfortably into my garage
My back garden is not quite the size of postage stamp.

arthur_dent_2

We are buying a 1920's ex council semi with a garden that nowadays would have a further 4 houses built on it. For many of the same reasons as above, I would not touch a new build with a barge pole.

arthur_dent_2

butch_dingle wrote: »

wow - there seems to be very polar opinions on this thread, mostly coming from the anti new build people, who thinks its ok to spread lies and misinformation to support their cause.

For what its worth I have a new build house which I am very happy with.

The ceilings are high enough (i am 6ft 4in)
The walls arent made of cardboard (I think building regulations dont allow it)
My neighbours house is more than 6 inches away
MY E Class mercedes fits quite comfortably into my garage
My back garden is not quite the size of postage stamp.

Do you have chiildren. I could not cope with mine in a new build because they are very small for the price. For me personally I would have had to pay around 25% more for a newbuild half the size.

Mrs_pbradley936

It depends on you lifestyle. I have lived in 17th century farmhouses, London flats,
Beachfront Condos and modern homes.

Older properties built before central heating and plumbing was invented will have them as add ons and they are not usually very good. Older homes are often more likely to get freeze ups in winter. On the plus side they come with bigger gardens. Is that a plus? Do you like gardening? Or will it be an eyesore it a few months? (unless you pay someone else to do it)

mink_2

I think the old style is always better.

CB1979_2

obviously it all depends what type of properties you're talking about.

if flats then older period properties all day long.

if bigger houses then it all depends on the builder, round my way there's a lot of massive houses getting knocked down and 2 detached housese being built, still BIG and still with 100ft gardens, and being built traditionally (ie brick, no paper thin walls etc).

these types of places are usually the smaller independent builders who don't mind only making about £300k for 6 months work rather than the bigger developers who want to make £3m in 6 months! lol

rjm67

The way I'd look at it is like this. Would you rather own a modern Aston Martin DB9, or James Bond DB5? We all know that the modern one would be easier to live to with, but it's just not a DB5 is it? If you're willing to spend the time, effort and money to get an old house up to date practicality wise, then there isn't any reason why it should cost much more to run than a similar new build. We are hoping to buy a 200+ years old cottage in the next couple of weeks, and I have to say that whilst I know it's going to take some time to get right, I can't wait to live somewhere that has so much history to it.

MsChazzer

Don't assume that old buildings always have better soundproofing (although often they do). We're currently renting a gorgeous Georgian flat but are moving on at the end of our lease because of sound problems. All the flats in the building have gorgeous stripped floors but no extra insulation/soundproofing in between. There's also a slight design problem in that downstairs have their kitchen under our bedroom and as they seem to do most of their living in there our sleep gets disturbed. Plus we get their smoke smells. We made sure we checked this out for our new flat (roll on moving day..).

I suppose it also depends on the design of the house, I've always been a fan of old properties but there are some really interesting new houses being built, we stayed in a modern b&b in Skye recently and it was gorgeous. May not be to everyone's taste but the soundproofing was excellent!

dannyboycey

The Victorians new how to build houses properly... unlike us.

epz_2

CB1979 wrote: »

obviously it all depends what type of properties you're talking about.

if flats then older period properties all day long.

if bigger houses then it all depends on the builder, round my way there's a lot of massive houses getting knocked down and 2 detached housese being built, still BIG and still with 100ft gardens, and being built traditionally (ie brick, no paper thin walls etc).

these types of places are usually the smaller independent builders who don't mind only making about £300k for 6 months work rather than the bigger developers who want to make £3m in 6 months! lol

someone did that up our way, a massive 150 year old listed mansion got knocked down to make room for 5 "luxury" detatched houses. apart from the houses being 300k and 5 foot apart it was out right vandalism to destroy what was a very run down but structurally sound (1) and not only a piece of art but historical record of out town.

it might be more profitable to sell two new houses than renovate one old one but it doesnt make it right, im sure serious cash changed hands to the bods that let them due it despite all sorts of lawsuits.

as far as im concerned they could have tarmacked over any bit of green belt round here and there are loads but that was an absolutely, you would have thought we would have learned something from the council scum wrecking historic glasgow in the 60s for towerblocks.


(1) its kind of hard for 3 foot wide sanstone walls not to stay sound short of a very big earthquake.