Why do people buy Persimmon / Barratt / New-built houses ?

lookstraightahead

Mildreds_Earrings said:

rik111 said:

The idea of something shiny and new and general stupidity....

Sadly, I agree with @rik111
I show clients around shared ownership show homes and one of the first things the client says is, everything's brand new, brand new toilet, wow! They don't ask me about neighbours, the development, the property etc, just fascinated that everything is new and nobody has lived in their new home. A month after buying, they phone to complain they can hear next door toilet flushing and people coughing, laughing, speaking next door. Ah well.... 

I live in an older house and I can hear next door's floor boards and their waste pipe runs down my wall. Not sure a new house is any worse 

Scotbot

I have lived in new (2yrs) old (120 yrs) and builds in between.  I prefer newer builds as they are low maintenance but the biggest factor for me is the old location, location, location. There simply aren't any new builds in the area I live now.

gab3x

We bought a house in Surry three months ago having sold our zone 2 london flat.

We looked at couple of Berkeley new builds - Princess Chase in Leaderhead and Leighwood Fields in Cranleigh. The houses were really pretty from the outside and better than expected as well as spacious inside (I don't particularly like boxy new build layouts).Garden was great. The thing that made us not go for it was the location - Princess Chase is practically on M25 so the noise is horrible (and I assume pollution too) and Cranleigh is a bit of a nightmare to commute to London.

The other thing I have a huge issue with is freehold covenants for upkeep of common areas and roads. Yes I know someone has to pay for it but I object to it as I see it as leasehold in disguise. 

We ended up buying a 120 year old character semi detached cottage just a short rain ride from Central London. It's smaller, more imperfect and everything needs a bit of work but we love it.

So for us new build would be +1 room, no cost of maintenance for at least 10 years at same price as our house but we do have a much better location now.

[Deleted User]

On the flooding thing, there was a report done on this recently and it found that while some new builds (those from 2008-2018) have been built in high flood risk areas, it's a fairly small number (5% according to the report).

weeg

moneysavinghero said:

weeg said:

And the flood plain thing? Red herring. In order to get planning you need to demonstrate that the houses won't flood.

As with anything they always find ways to get round it.

This site in construction with flooding all around it seems to suggest getting PP was not an issue (even though all locals knew it was a floodplain)

Doesn't this photo kind of prove my point? Floodplain, yes; flooded site, no.

I didn't say they don't build on flood plains. But, in order to get warrants there is a requirement to model the rainfall and flooding and to build to avoid the houses (although not necessarily the whole site) being flooded. And the modelling in Scotland (dunno about elsewhere) is required to account for both increased rainfall from climate change and increased runoff from urban development.

Obviously it's not foolproof but it's cheaper for developers to try and get it right than pay for the consequences of getting it wrong.

teachfast

gordon_harris said:

On the flooding thing, there was a report done on this recently and it found that while some new builds (those from 2008-2018) have been built in high flood risk areas, it's a fairly small number (5% according to the report).

And it's so simple to check before buying. 

RelievedSheff

We bought a new build David Wilson Homes house a couple of years ago.

We bought it because we loved the layout of the house and the privacy in the garden. We did not use help to buy or any of the other government schemes but we did part exchange our previous house against this new build.

We have found the house to be very well built and super warm in the winter with really small running costs. This detached new build house feels much more solid than our previous 1930's ex local authority semi. That really was the house of bodges and horrors.

A lot of people have bad prejudice against new build properties, a lot of our friends and family included, but without fail all of those who have been to our house have really liked it. One in fact has gone on to buy the same house type on a different development after previously saying they would never buy a new build.

There are hundreds of thousands of new homes built every year and they are not all bad. Trouble is you only ever hear about the bad ones. Yes we have had a few snags in the last couple of years but nothing that is of any detriment to the property and nothing that the developers have not been able to sort out quickly and efficiently. 

Flugelhorn

we sold a 100 year edwardian house that had continual roof problems and cost a fortune to heat. Moved into 10 year old barratts, roof doesn't leak and bills are one third of what they were - and it is warmer

maisie_cat

With new, everything is new, no inheriting dodgy old kitchen cabinets or boilers that fail after 6 months. No finding that a blockwork wall has been built onto floorboards, no dodgy plumbing or electrics that have been added to over the years.
Sometimes with older houses it can be one thing after another, and people who just want relax in their homes don't want that.
That's not to say that there have been some seriously iffy workmanship on new builds in the press recently
Housebuilders have to squeeze as many as density rules allow, given that the business case will have to wash it's own face. They build as cheaply as they can in order to generate development profit so space will always be a compromise over an older property.
We are in an acre plot and I'm sure that if we were not in a national park there could easily be several houses in our garden.

ele_91

We are considering a new build as we are finding it impossible to buy an older house due to chain issues. We have had 4 purchases fall through due to vendors pulling out or chains collapsing and now we need certainty that we can move. Currently my partner and I live in my house which is very small so staying isn’t an option. When buying a new build there is certainty around where you will live.