Opinions on new builds

C_Mababejive

Why are a lot of new builds sold at such ridiculously high prices? I wonder what sort of profit margin there is and do buyers of newbuilds have an expectation that they can sell for a profit?

I wonder if there is cope for investors to buy new builds off plan and then sell for profit when they are fully built or all built and moved in??

bearcat16

We bought a new build house a year ago, and like others have said, there are pros and cons.

I actually love our house (persimmon) it has a big garden and parking and a garage- I would not have got that at the price we paid otherwise.

The incentives we were offered also made a big difference. They matched our deposit pound for pound, upgraded us from Tarmac to block paved driveway, etc.

I remember the day I parked the car in the garage for the first time and saw that it was plenty big enough. I actually danced in the street! It meant lower car insurance and not having to park on the road, which can get 'competitive'!

One thing I didn't expect were the deed of covenants, basically restrictions built into the deeds that last forever.

For example, in this estate you are not permitted to run a business from the house, nor are you permitted to park a caravan or commercial vehicle anywhere (not on your drive, nor on the spaces on the road).

Christmas lights can only be up in December and January and may be only blue or white (not both) and must not blink.

You're not allowed any animals except domestic pets.

And so on...

I think they are designed to keep the estate a nice place to live etc.

In reality, these are widely ignored (I can count 5 commercial vehicles on drives just looking out the window!) but could cause a problem if you end up in a feud with an idiot neighbor.

ilikecookies

As others have said if this is to be a home (rather than an investment) then I wouldn't frame this initially as a new-build vs old-build question. Instead I'd lock down my requirements (location, number of bedrooms, whether it has to be detached, whether a garage, garden, etc is needed) and then approach the market with an open mind considering all properties (new and old) which fit the bill. You are then in a position to judge the relative value of new-builds vs old-builds.

My fear with new-builds, like a new car, is that you can pay a hefty premium for it being new. The benefit of this is that it should be immaculate throughout (so no work to do) but as such it's hard to add any value beyond the inevitable price rises that lift all houses. With an old-build, assuming it has been priced right and you have the skills/budget, there is considerable scope to add value if that is what you want to do.

dirty_magic

bearcat16 wrote: »

One thing I didn't expect were the deed of covenants, basically restrictions built into the deeds that last forever.

For example, in this estate you are not permitted to run a business from the house, nor are you permitted to park a caravan or commercial vehicle anywhere (not on your drive, nor on the spaces on the road).

Christmas lights can only be up in December and January and may be only blue or white (not both) and must not blink.

You're not allowed any animals except domestic pets.

And so on...

I think they are designed to keep the estate a nice place to live etc.

In reality, these are widely ignored (I can count 5 commercial vehicles on drives just looking out the window!) but could cause a problem if you end up in a feud with an idiot neighbor.

Ours isn't a new build and ours has these too. We can't keep caravans and we can't extend to the front of the property, but people do have caravans and well over 50% have extended to the front.

Does anyone ever enforce these? Do they only count on leasehold houses? Ours was leasehold when it was built but pretty much all of them are freehold now.

Chanes

I love new builds, we had one it was great. We moved to a bigger house that is 25 years old and has cost us an extra 15k to address age issues and need to spend more to bring the kitchen up to date. If there was a new build available I wouldn't mind spending the extra for the peace of mind. I have also owned a Victorian Terrace and it was a money pit, and the build quality of it was very poor; there has always been poor builds.

One point - buy detached if you buy new. I have lost count of people saying new build mews houses have poor sound proofing, so much so one person I know could hear the 'splash' when the toilet was used next door!