Where to Find Off Plan House Purchase

Slithery

ariaane said:

I haven't ruled out completely purchasing an old home but I know I can get more bang for my buck from an offplan property 

Where did you get that idea from? New-build properties usually command a higher price than the equivalent second-hand property.

ariaane

Slithery said:

ariaane said:

I haven't ruled out completely purchasing an old home but I know I can get more bang for my buck from an offplan property 

Where did you get that idea from? New-build properties usually command a higher price than the equivalent second-hand property.

When bought early in development I've known people who have had a lot shaved off the price when bought complete. 

wedge69

New build house, off plan or not, will always demand a premium over older homes.

AdrianC

ariaane said:

Slithery said:

ariaane said:

I haven't ruled out completely purchasing an old home but I know I can get more bang for my buck from an offplan property 

Where did you get that idea from? New-build properties usually command a higher price than the equivalent second-hand property.

When bought early in development I've known people who have had a lot shaved off the price when bought complete. 

That's simply because those particular properties on those particular developments were not selling as well as hoped-for at that particular time...

There is always a new-build premium. A new-build house, size-for-size, will always be more expensive than a "used" one in the same area. It will almost always have more onerous conditions around rentcharges and covenants.

Neil49

Our last two homes have been new builds, the first being off plan. Personally I wouldn't buy off plan as you don't actually see what you are buying. The one we bought had a nice location on the edge of the development but all we saw on signing up was a flat building site before a single brick had been laid.

Once built, the feeder road seemed to be closer to the front of the house than seemed on the plan. The 3 storey town houses behind seemed to tower over us and the nice woodland setting at the front suddenly made everything seem darker in the summer when the trees were in leaf. When we came to sell all these issues made it difficult to find a buyer, yet it all looked so nice on the site plan 10 years earlier.

Would we buy off plan again? - No. 

Our new house was well under way in construction and we could see all the houses around us, the outlook, the width of the road, where the sun is etc and we were happy with what we saw. 

We also pay an ongoing charge for maintenance as we have a large expanse of grounds around us and a play area. This is maintained every 6 weeks and looks good. There's no way the local council would do this as they just don't have the funds. 

BigD74

ariaane said:

Slithery said:

ariaane said:

I haven't ruled out completely purchasing an old home but I know I can get more bang for my buck from an offplan property 

Where did you get that idea from? New-build properties usually command a higher price than the equivalent second-hand property.

When bought early in development I've known people who have had a lot shaved off the price when bought complete. 

Yes, they will get it reduced, typically by having “free” upgrades thrown in, if the house is nearly finished and it hasn’t sold yet. At that stage a number of choices / upgrades will have already been made by the builder such as the kitchen, and the developer will be keen to sell. 

As for as new build searches are concerned, I just visited all the usual builder sites online: Barratt, Bellway, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, David Wilson, Miller homes, Kier, Avant. Also Persimmons, but we weren’t keen on their build quality. 

70Jenny2184

If you go on your local authority website they will have a page where you can search planning permission.  Search for major and medium sized residential developments and you will see all the plans submitted for upcoming developments well in advance of any building work starting.  You'll be able to see loads of info including a site plan, traffic reports, house types - I'm hoping to buy next year too and its become somewhat of a 'hobby' for me now. 

GDB2222

If it's a new build, nobody really knows what it will cost to maintain the estate. Also, it's in the developer's interests to keep the estimates as low as possible. There have been lots of complaints that these figures go up rapidly once all the houses on the site have been sold off.

OldMusicGuy

If you buy a new build from any mainstream developer, you will be paying annual service charges even on freehold properties to maintain the common areas. And you will need to be aware that the third party management companies that manage these areas (in most cases) are pretty much universally awful and will try to increase the charges so they can make more money each year. Unless the development has a resident-owned management company (which is rare), you will not be able to replace the management company or take over running the common areas. So you will be at their mercy.

If you don't like the sound of this, you cannot buy a new build from a mainstream developer. Your only chance will be finding a small, local builder that may be putting up a small number of new properties where they will not bother with this type of arrangement. You will need to decide the area you want to live and then research small developers in that area and find out what they have coming to market. We did this and reserved off-plan with a small local builder who was putting up 3 houses (with no annual maintenance charges). However, dealing with small local builders can have its own challenges, which is what we found. We pulled out after many delays and ended up buying a new build from a midsize developer. This development has service charges but at least we have a residents management company, so we decide what gets charged.   

ariaane

BigD74 said:

ariaane said:

Slithery said:

ariaane said:

I haven't ruled out completely purchasing an old home but I know I can get more bang for my buck from an offplan property 

Where did you get that idea from? New-build properties usually command a higher price than the equivalent second-hand property.

When bought early in development I've known people who have had a lot shaved off the price when bought complete. 

Yes, they will get it reduced, typically by having “free” upgrades thrown in, if the house is nearly finished and it hasn’t sold yet. At that stage a number of choices / upgrades will have already been made by the builder such as the kitchen, and the developer will be keen to sell. 

As for as new build searches are concerned, I just visited all the usual builder sites online: Barratt, Bellway, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, David Wilson, Miller homes, Kier, Avant. Also Persimmons, but we weren’t keen on their build quality. 

Thank you for the input, maybe I've made some wrong initial assumptions....