First time buyers and new build houses

steve_jones

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone had a clue as to why a lot of first time buyers all seem to go for new build homes??? I see it so often on social media a young couple posing outside their brand spanking new Persimmon home. I understand its their choice but surely they realise new builds depreciate in value the moment you walk in, they are poorly build and resemble rabbit hutches with no garden or privacy and some even have to pay a maintenance fee to companies such as greenbelt to mow a few lawns as the council don't see it their duty to do this.

Intrigued to see different view points on this.

Cakeguts

They have probably used Help to Buy. It means that people who are not very good at saving can buy a house sooner.

lena_halo

They!!!8217;re nicely finished and they look good as a show home. Plus you get extras like ensuites and built-in appliances and wardrobes etc, so I can see why ftb would be interested, especially with help to buy.

Nicola83

We've just moved in to a new build and we are first time buyers.
We haven't bought with persimmon, the developer we have gone with is a local one and only builds in the north west.
I wouldn't call our house a rabbit hutch, it is only 3 bedrooms but we have so much space, and our garden is bigger than any I have had growing up.
My mum and dad live in a Victorian terraced house which has no back garden at all and a very small kitchen.
We went for a new build because we want to build our life together in It, not sell it a few years down the line. Everything in it is neutral so we can decorate it as and when we want to, we haven't had to do any refurbishment work and we get a 10 year guarantee with it.
We've been in it a week up to now, and apart from a couple of minor snagging issues, there has been nothing wrong with it, and we couldn't be happier with it.

GrumpySO&SO

Help to buy, mainly, I would think. And they aren't so bad in my experience but it depends which you buy i suppose and if you want to read every horror story.

My grandad bought his house in the 1940s when it was fairly new and there was something wrong with the foundation i think... Or at least something quite significant that he had to fix when they moved in. If course you wouldn't know that now!

Secondly, having just sold our new build we looked around houses of varying ages (though none Victorian) and may that are older by far than ours are still small, if not smaller and with no storage space. Gardens a bit nicer.

So to say that new build are much smaller than older houses, is untrue. My grandparents house in fact not much bigger than ours, although their garden could have had 2 other houses built there!

It's your preference... Also for many young people (such as ourselves) the allure of not having to fix or redecorate is appealing. And we experienced no real problems beyond a few cracks appearing as the house settled.

Sound insulation much better than I've experienced in older houses built in the 60s. Our neighbours held a very noisy party once and when they apologized we had to ask "what party" cos we didn't hear a thing. In fact we experimented by turning out sound system up to max (I played Crawling by Linkin Park) and didn't hear a thing.

But mainly i think the draw is the help to buy as i don't really know if many people on our old estate who bought it without. Saying that, most people there probably could have afforded without help to buy but perhaps have had to get a smaller house in a lesser area. So I'm not sure how well it really helps young people who would otherwise struggle to aid a deposit and a mortgage. It seems to have just given people a leg up the ladder to get a nicer house a bit earlier than they could otherwuse afford.

I don't know if the value has actually really gone down. Although we didn't do too well, others have sold theirs for a good price. Now we are moving to a house teeth years older, quite similar actually but minus the help to buy loan. Could we have done so without that first stepping stone? No.

Sorry for typos. I'm on my phone and it interpretted one of my swypings as urinalysis. Why my phone has that in its dictionary i dunno.

kingstreet

Statistically, I suspect more FTBs buy second-hand than newbuild.

The newbuild market in the UK is about 250k and there are far more FTBs than that every year.

As a newbuild specialist, I'd say we deal with more movers than FTBs.

dh058977

We were first time buyers last year, we decided to buy a new build property and couldn't be happier!
The process was hassle free, we enjoyed picking all of our options, there were plenty of site visits and tons of obligatory FB photo opportunities stood in front of our house!

Depreciation - This doesn't bother me at all, you go in eyes open as you would with buying a new car and we purchased it to live in, not to make money off.
"Poorly Built" - Far from it in our case, we are very very happy with the standard of our home.
"Resemble rabbit hutches" - We have a lovely 4 bedroom house with ample space, bedrooms are . . .
3.95m x 3.36m, 3.95m x 3.74m, 3.20m x 2.87m and 3.38m x 1.91m - Plenty of space for us as a couple and for us to raise a family.
"no garden or privacy" - We only have one neighbour to the right, on the other sides we have the ends of long existing rear gardens (Obviously our drive to the front). Our garden is a great size, we have a lovely patio large enough for our dining set, hot tub & 2 rabbit hutches & raised pond. There is also a pathway the length of our garden that leads to the shed (and alongside it), bin storage and an area of grass.

Whilst I am sure there are plenty of new builds that conform to your stereotypes, not all do in the same way that not all Irishmen are stupid and not all Americans are fat!

steve_jones wrote: »

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone had a clue as to why a lot of first time buyers all seem to go for new build homes??? I see it so often on social media a young couple posing outside their brand spanking new Persimmon home. I understand its their choice but surely they realise new builds depreciate in value the moment you walk in, they are poorly build and resemble rabbit hutches with no garden or privacy and some even have to pay a maintenance fee to companies such as greenbelt to mow a few lawns as the council don't see it their duty to do this.

Intrigued to see different view points on this.

Lauralou79

I'm an older FTB and bought a 3 bed 30s semi full of features, some slight sweeping generalisations I'm reading. I'm happy to redecorate and maintain a house as needed. I'm an adult I understand this.
I'm not a fan of new houses but I can see why people buy them when all shiny and new. Each to their own, if we all liked the same the market would be bad !

Caraway90

We were FTB in our 20s and had considered a new build as we both work full time and to be honest just didn't want the hassle of a project - nothing to do with Help to Buy though, luckily we live in a very reasonably priced part of the country so we had a 10% deposit sorted. I don't think a lot of people consider the depreciation element though, that had never crossed my mind.

However, the only new build estate in the area we wanted to be in was a leasehold Persimmon estate, so the leasehold element made it a definite no! Morally there was no way I was buying a house to the not own the land it was sat on, or paying for maintenance for the roads etc. on top of council tax. These new builds are a far bit cheaper than comparable properties nearby and there obviously has to be a reason for this.

We went for a 13 year old house (close to the new development) and we love it

ashe

Like with anything, the lower area of the market is going to be sub-par. Cheaper new builds will have small gardens, poor parking, be close together, small rooms etc but thats still an area of the market that needs to be covered. for someone it will be a great home. Just like with non-new build homes, as you spend more money you get more space, better quality, better area etc. Every house was a new build at some point! Yes it depreciates in value but that only bothers you if you are going to sell in the next few years.

Detroit

Generalisations, but:

The designers of new build starter homes do their research and build homes that are particularly attractive to their target market. They stage them to sell an aspirational lifestyle to the relevant demographic.

People are often attracted to areas and communities where there are others with similar lifestyles live, hence younger people living near other younger people on starter home estates.

It can take experience to see the potential in an older home. New builds are the finished product.

Many first time buyers have no surplus funds after finding their deposit to do any work, not even to purchase white goods. The deals where this is part of the purchase price (so goes on the mortgage rather than cash needed to be found) are attractive.