Buying a new build next to a crematorium + Redrow development

Postik

jonnydeppiwish! said:

Thanks for the in depth reply, always good to hear different ideas about approaching a new build purchase. We’ve always bought wrecks that need at least a year of working to renovate them, so we thought we’d go new with one of the first phase houses. There are similar developments around, but for us the location is actually pretty good for our social lives and grandchildren duties.

With the second hand ‘new’ builds they don’t seem to be a good size, or they’ve had too much squeezed into them and feel cramped.  So many choices! Now need to find out if/what we can get included in the price.

Thanks again

When I was looking at brand new (off plan) new builds, my approach was going to be not to expect absolute perfection, which would probably be easier said than done because I am a perfectionist.

Depending on your luck (or lack of it), there might be many things you're not 100% happy with but just have to come to accept.  For example, when you turn up half way through the build and one of the walls has used two different batches of bricks and half the wall is one colour and the other half is another colour, you're probably going to have to accept it, or at best convince them to get a firm in and "tint" the bricks the correct colour.  They're not going to knock the wall down and start again on your say so.

One thing I did do is ask the sales advisor to show me around a completed house on the estate that wasn't yet occupied.  They actually did this, and although it was a quick 15 minute tour it did give me some confidence that, at least superficially, everything looked good.

With the second hand new build I bought there are various minor snags I have discovered - I don't know whether these didn't bother the original owners, whether they gave up trying to get them rectified, or whether they had much bigger snags to deal with that I don't know about and eventually gave up with will to live on the smaller ones.

I've since had to fix things like minor central heating leaks and terribly fitted guttering, all of which are a result of original shoddy workmanship.  The cost has been a few hundred pounds so in the grand scheme of buying a house it's nothing.  But people who saw the house before we bought it said, "Oooh you won't have to do anything to that house for many years to come" which simply isn't true.  I've seen a few other houses on my estate which after 5 years have scaffold up around the chimneys for a couple of days, so obviously some of them have problems with the chimneys.

So I don't believe buying new = don't have to do any work.  Sometimes when you read about people pulling their hair out getting snags fixed (and fixed properly, without breaking a load of other stuff in the process) I wonder if they'd be better just paying out of their own pocket to have someone competent fix them.  BUT one way or another you'd hope that buying new will surely be less work than buying a complete wreck!

koalakoala

I actually love buying a new house ! Love everything brand spanking new.  Although our last purchase was 30 years old ( due to no new available in our retirement location ) and we ended up gutting it completely,so now everything is new.
But it was so stressful, took longer and cost more than we anticipated
I would still choose new

jonnydeppiwish!

Postik said:

jonnydeppiwish! said:

Thanks for the in depth reply, always good to hear different ideas about approaching a new build purchase. We’ve always bought wrecks that need at least a year of working to renovate them, so we thought we’d go new with one of the first phase houses. There are similar developments around, but for us the location is actually pretty good for our social lives and grandchildren duties.

With the second hand ‘new’ builds they don’t seem to be a good size, or they’ve had too much squeezed into them and feel cramped.  So many choices! Now need to find out if/what we can get included in the price.

Thanks again

When I was looking at brand new (off plan) new builds, my approach was going to be not to expect absolute perfection, which would probably be easier said than done because I am a perfectionist.

Depending on your luck (or lack of it), there might be many things you're not 100% happy with but just have to come to accept.  For example, when you turn up half way through the build and one of the walls has used two different batches of bricks and half the wall is one colour and the other half is another colour, you're probably going to have to accept it, or at best convince them to get a firm in and "tint" the bricks the correct colour.  They're not going to knock the wall down and start again on your say so.

One thing I did do is ask the sales advisor to show me around a completed house on the estate that wasn't yet occupied.  They actually did this, and although it was a quick 15 minute tour it did give me some confidence that, at least superficially, everything looked good.

With the second hand new build I bought there are various minor snags I have discovered - I don't know whether these didn't bother the original owners, whether they gave up trying to get them rectified, or whether they had much bigger snags to deal with that I don't know about and eventually gave up with will to live on the smaller ones.

I've since had to fix things like minor central heating leaks and terribly fitted guttering, all of which are a result of original shoddy workmanship.  The cost has been a few hundred pounds so in the grand scheme of buying a house it's nothing.  But people who saw the house before we bought it said, "Oooh you won't have to do anything to that house for many years to come" which simply isn't true.  I've seen a few other houses on my estate which after 5 years have scaffold up around the chimneys for a couple of days, so obviously some of them have problems with the chimneys.

So I don't believe buying new = don't have to do any work.  Sometimes when you read about people pulling their hair out getting snags fixed (and fixed properly, without breaking a load of other stuff in the process) I wonder if they'd be better just paying out of their own pocket to have someone competent fix them.  BUT one way or another you'd hope that buying new will surely be less work than buying a complete wreck!

We’re kind of hoping it will equal significantly less work compared to living in building sites for 18 months at a time (tended to all the strip out and decorating ourselves, and employed individuals for different parts of the work).