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

field1990

I’m about to buy my third house (last two were older houses and both had problems!). Buying from persimmon as house and garden are much bigger and less expensive than other existing builds in my area and won’t have too much more to spend to finish the house completely as renovating our existing house was expensive. They are also paying my full £21k of stamp duty which is a big saving (not completing till end of this year). Unfortunately whilst I’d dream of a character house it’s expensive in my area so the only way to get the space we want is to buy a new build. 

I know snags will be bad but I’ve moved into two existing properties which have both had their fair share of problems. I think it’s whatever works for you, there’s no right or wrong! 

moneysavinghero

gagahouse said:

moneysavinghero said:

Mickey666 said:

Persimmon sell around 16,000 new homes per year.  

in 2018, Persimmon's CEO was awarded a £128m bonus, as part of an £800m bonus package to other board members and senior staff - that's £50,000 PER HOUSE!  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon_plc#Criticism

Yes, the final payments were downgraded after widespread shareholder and public criticism but it shows the sort of corporate ethos within the company about feathering their own nests at the expense of their customers.

That alone would be enough to stop me from buying one of their houses . . . even without all the reports of poor quality and compromised fire safety.

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/will-persimmon-now-put-its-own-house-in-order/5103663.article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50827576

 

"The huge profit – the biggest ever made by a UK housebuilder – means Persimmon banked £66,265 from every one of the 16,449 homes it sold last year. The average selling price was just over £215,000"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/26/persimmon-profits-help-to-buy-scheme

Yet if you look at the actual data:

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/top-25-housebuilders-by-housing-operating-margins/1001355.article

Many builders make more money than Persimmon do, but people only seem to want to want to slag off Persimmon. 

People, like my brother who bought one of their houses, slag them off because they are cowboys and build crap houses. They didn't complete the snags and lied about returning to finish them. Despite countless calls, emails and letters they never came back to fix them so they deserve all the scorn they get.

For some bizarre reason you think your opinion trumps those of those who've actually bought and been left high and dry by them.

Funny how everyone that comments about Persimmon is responding on behalf of 'a friend of the family' or 'my brother' never the purchaser directly themselves. If Persimmon were as bad as people like to make out (on behalf of someone else) they would not make as much money as they do. People buy their houses because they offer such good value for money. Sure there will be occasional snags as with anything you buy from whoever you buy. And the cheaper the product you buy the more snags you should expect.

I don't believe my opinion trumps any other. I fully respect your decision to present another side to things. I just don't believe in a world where people can slag off and bully the little guy without the right of reply, i just want to present the other side of the debate.

grumiofoundation

moneysavinghero said:

gagahouse said:

moneysavinghero said:

Mickey666 said:

Persimmon sell around 16,000 new homes per year.  

in 2018, Persimmon's CEO was awarded a £128m bonus, as part of an £800m bonus package to other board members and senior staff - that's £50,000 PER HOUSE!  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon_plc#Criticism

Yes, the final payments were downgraded after widespread shareholder and public criticism but it shows the sort of corporate ethos within the company about feathering their own nests at the expense of their customers.

That alone would be enough to stop me from buying one of their houses . . . even without all the reports of poor quality and compromised fire safety.

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/will-persimmon-now-put-its-own-house-in-order/5103663.article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50827576

 

"The huge profit – the biggest ever made by a UK housebuilder – means Persimmon banked £66,265 from every one of the 16,449 homes it sold last year. The average selling price was just over £215,000"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/26/persimmon-profits-help-to-buy-scheme

Yet if you look at the actual data:

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/top-25-housebuilders-by-housing-operating-margins/1001355.article

Many builders make more money than Persimmon do, but people only seem to want to want to slag off Persimmon. 

People, like my brother who bought one of their houses, slag them off because they are cowboys and build crap houses. They didn't complete the snags and lied about returning to finish them. Despite countless calls, emails and letters they never came back to fix them so they deserve all the scorn they get.

For some bizarre reason you think your opinion trumps those of those who've actually bought and been left high and dry by them.

Funny how everyone that comments about Persimmon is responding on behalf of 'a friend of the family' or 'my brother' never the purchaser directly themselves. If Persimmon were as bad as people like to make out (on behalf of someone else) they would not make as much money as they do. People buy their houses because they offer such good value for money. Sure there will be occasional snags as with anything you buy from whoever you buy. And the cheaper the product you buy the more snags you should expect.

I don't believe my opinion trumps any other. I fully respect your decision to present another side to things. I just don't believe in a world where people can slag off and bully the little guy without the right of reply, i just want to present the other side of the debate.

So to clarify is FTSE 100 constituent Persimmon the little guy?


The cynics amongst us will be wondering why you still haven't declared if you have any interest in them, maybe you are selling a Persimmon house, have large % of your wealth in Persimmon shares, an ancestor won a packet on the horse or maybe you just love the fruit? 

GDB2222

“ Funny how everyone that comments about Persimmon is responding on behalf of 'a friend of the family' or 'my brother' never the purchaser directly themselves.”

Perhaps the purchasers can’t post, as they are waiting in the phone queue to deal with the snagging department? 

Birdy54

moneysavinghero said:

With the Persimmon homes i think people buy them because they offer such exceptional value for money. Not sure why anyone would buy a Barratt when you could have a Persimmon though.

hahahah is that a joke... persimmon homes are the worst of all new builds, they're shocking

field1990

Everyones situation is different and there no right or wrong choice so I wouldn't really slate someone's decision to purchase either as some people here are deciding to do! You can have problems with both a new build or an existing house...I've experienced both in different ways.

RelievedSheff

Birdy54 said:

moneysavinghero said:

With the Persimmon homes i think people buy them because they offer such exceptional value for money. Not sure why anyone would buy a Barratt when you could have a Persimmon though.

hahahah is that a joke... persimmon homes are the worst of all new builds, they're shocking

Oh I don't know. Gleeson and Keepmoat can give them a run for their money.

But you pay your money and take your choice. These are cheaper houses for a reason.

gagahouse

moneysavinghero said:

gagahouse said:

moneysavinghero said:

Mickey666 said:

Persimmon sell around 16,000 new homes per year.  

in 2018, Persimmon's CEO was awarded a £128m bonus, as part of an £800m bonus package to other board members and senior staff - that's £50,000 PER HOUSE!  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon_plc#Criticism

Yes, the final payments were downgraded after widespread shareholder and public criticism but it shows the sort of corporate ethos within the company about feathering their own nests at the expense of their customers.

That alone would be enough to stop me from buying one of their houses . . . even without all the reports of poor quality and compromised fire safety.

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/will-persimmon-now-put-its-own-house-in-order/5103663.article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50827576

 

"The huge profit – the biggest ever made by a UK housebuilder – means Persimmon banked £66,265 from every one of the 16,449 homes it sold last year. The average selling price was just over £215,000"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/26/persimmon-profits-help-to-buy-scheme

Yet if you look at the actual data:

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/top-25-housebuilders-by-housing-operating-margins/1001355.article

Many builders make more money than Persimmon do, but people only seem to want to want to slag off Persimmon. 

People, like my brother who bought one of their houses, slag them off because they are cowboys and build crap houses. They didn't complete the snags and lied about returning to finish them. Despite countless calls, emails and letters they never came back to fix them so they deserve all the scorn they get.

For some bizarre reason you think your opinion trumps those of those who've actually bought and been left high and dry by them.

Funny how everyone that comments about Persimmon is responding on behalf of 'a friend of the family' or 'my brother' never the purchaser directly themselves. If Persimmon were as bad as people like to make out (on behalf of someone else) they would not make as much money as they do. People buy their houses because they offer such good value for money. Sure there will be occasional snags as with anything you buy from whoever you buy. And the cheaper the product you buy the more snags you should expect.

I don't believe my opinion trumps any other. I fully respect your decision to present another side to things. I just don't believe in a world where people can slag off and bully the little guy without the right of reply, i just want to present the other side of the debate.

So what? You'd prefer I lie and say it was me instead? How does that detract from the point?

In fact I was very directly involved in the purchase as my parents provided the funds as I had power of attorney to perform the purchase on their behalf.

On the day of completion, they were still in there working, hadn't cleared the rubbish and the driveway hadn't been laid yet. They also had fenced off a part of the garden around a power supply they still needed to power their equipment to finish off the surrounding houses despite the fact that land now belonged to us.

Fortunately this gave me the leverage to get them to sort out what should have been done at completion. I threatened to smash up their power supply which was illegally on our land and that it would cost them a lot more than the few grand it would cost them to finish the house to the acceptable standard it should have been at completion. They needed it there for another 8 weeks and they wouldn't have been able to carry out any work on the surrounding houses without it. It's not normally what I would do but I realised I was dealing with a bunch of charlatans so I had to employ the same dirty tactics they did. They pushed to complete on the given date as it was 3 days before their year end so they wanted to book the completion for their bonuses even though it was clear the house would not be completed.

This got the job done as far as what was outstanding and expected at completion but there were still a lot of snags that needed sorting. Once the 8 weeks was up they were gone never to be seen or heard from again.

So you want to defend the little guy, give me a f....ng break. They're a bunch of charlatan cowboys and thousands of other dissatisfied actual purchasers unlike you know better than you. They make so much money because they take advantage of their oligopolistic position in an archaic planning system market that consistently guarantees demand outstrips supply with the added advantage of easily available credit (HTB) with an implicit government guarantee. It's not hard to understand why they profit so much is it?

What is your unique perspective exactly such that you are so dismissive of others actual negative experience with them? Have you bought and had a wonderful experience? Do you work for them or are you a shareholder? I notice others have asked you to declare your interest but you fail to do so.

Why if you're not any of the above do you give a damn about and defend a FTSE company that makes billions of profits that takes the proverbial out of their customers? You haven't presented the other side of the debate, you've just stated they make lots of money so all these people who actually bought and complain must by implication be lying or are 'bullying' a large company whatever that actually means. 

hazyjo

This link goes some way to explaining why some people prefer or will only buy new builds!

Not getting into the argument of which builders are crap, just a general reason for not wanting an older property:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6261424/what-sellers-hide/p1

Octothorpe

Can I ask those that have bought new builds, how does it work when you have to sell your house before you buy?

Most aren't built already so sold off plan many months earlier than completion.

Yet I read they want you to sign all paperwork for buying within 28 days or something...??