Hi, my husband and I have been looking to move for over six months, because we were planning a family and live in a flat. We?re finding the market really slow for houses, and can?t find what we want coming up for sale. It looks like a little one will be coming along sooner than we anticipated, so now we?re considering a new build house. Anyone got any advice? We?re trying to imagine what we?ll need when we have (hopefully!) two children, and are wondering whether some of the draw backs of a new build home will good for a family.
We?ve found a development in an area that we like, and a plot we like for a four bedroom house. One issue that one of my friends raised is that the house doesn?t have a utility room in the kitchen. It?s a big house, with a separate downstairs study, dining room and living room and what to us seems like a really big kitchen with plenty of room for a play area or another table. Does not having a utility room matter? We hadn?t thought of it, but we?re not used to living in a big house! It does have four good sized bedrooms, which we like.
None of the newbuild houses we?ve looked at has a driveway outside the front door, which we had been looking at before. Instead the driveways go down the side of house, but the one we like doesn?t have a shared driveway, which most of the other newbuilds we looked at had. The houses are built close to the road as well, although the road is a very quiet residential street, with a front area that is only about three feet deep. There is a metal fence around the front area, but to get to the driveway I think you have to walk about of the front gate and the driveway is there on the side of the house. I guess we could use the back door to the garden which also comes out on the side driveway, but we?re trying to imagine loading up a car with two kids and whether that will matter?
All the gardens are quite small too on these new houses. The garden of the plot we like is bigger, probably 7.5 m deep and maybe 9 m wide, but compared to an older house it?s quite small, and it?s a little bit smaller than an older part of this area which was newbuild I guess ten years ago, but not a lot smaller. It?s hard to imagine how much space we?ll need for us and the kids in the summer. And the price for the newbuild puts it above the cost of similar houses in the area by about £10k to £15k, but we know you pay more for a newbuild, and it means all repairs and boiler breakdowns are covered for a few years, and we won?t need to do any decorating while we?re busy with the little one.
The up sides are we like it, it?s in a nice area, and in the catchment for the schools we want to go to. And they?re offering us the asking price for our flat, and have come down on the price a bit, and are giving us some extras. Plus we?ll be in and settled in plenty of time for the baby!
Any advice would be great. We don?t to buy something and regret it later.
Karen.
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Advice for a mum-to-be buying a newbuild house
9 replies
karenswansea · 28/01/2013 20:34
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sparkle9 ·
28/01/2013 20:53
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