If you have (or know someone else who has) a new build property, who built it and would you recommend them as a company?

[Tigerschick]

We are looking to buy a house in the next 12-18 months.

Our local building society do an equity share thing but only with new build properties. So we are starting to look at new estates in the area but we have no idea which companies are any good.

I'm thinking in terms of ease of purchase, listening to your wish-list, quality of build, size of plot etc.

Any comments gratefully received

[duckyfuzz]

we bought new build from Miller homes 5 years ago, its a nice house, good size plot, nice aspect, quiet estate. My only problem with them is really of our own making - we didn't chase up snagging as our twins were born 2 weeks after moving in and we lost the will to deal with crap plastering/dodgy plumbing, I would buy from them again, but would be better at chasing up snagging issues (and hopefully not have twins again )

[RubySlippers]

we bought from David Wilson four years ago and were very impressed overall

(we have since moved twice more!)

[namechanger13579]

Have a relative who worked in that industry who would also say David Wilson are good & don't touch Barrett with a bargepole

[Tigerschick]

Interesting ... thank you all.

I know that David Wilson are building in the area, as a Barrat.
Don't know about Miller, will investigate.
(Congratulations on the twins duckyfuzz)

Anyone else, I wonder

[Tigerschick]

as are Barrat

[justaphase]

Fairview New Homes - terrible!!!

[Tigerschick]

Anyone else??

[zippitippitoes]

if you are looking now the most important thing is whether they are financially viable to complete a project

[themoon66]

Not sure where in the country you are Tigerschick, but we bought our new house off a very well respected small local builder here in Lincolnshire. I think he may have branched out as far as Peterborough now. He is called Peter Sowerby.

[Nappyzoneneedssleep]

Ours is a mclean and we have had no problems and it is over ten yr old now - our old house was a shepherd and the garage had to be knocked down and rebuilt when it was 8 yr old - we were worried the same owuld happen to the house so we swiftly moved! Fortunatly it was covered by the NHBC.

[Tigerschick]

Good point zippi!

Not heard of Mclean - I'll check them out ...

themoon - we are looking in Lincolnshire so I'll definitely do soem investigating.

Thanks all

[dannyb]

We had a Barratt house for 5 years and were very impressed, The finish in the kitchen was basic but everything else was excellent, It was well built, solid and we had no complaints.

[SnoopDog]

can i just say after working in the new build industry that it is the same as anything in life,

you can not say avoid barratt, david wilson etc just because one person on here says they had a bad experience,

for a start, as with many industries the workforce changes all the time,

you go to mc donalds and have a burned buger, it does not mean that all mc donalds burgers are burned, only that the person cooking today was not great, and going further, it may have been that the only burger they burned all day was yours and that the 1000 other burgers they cooked that day were delicious,

i have worked for many different builders and this will change up and down the country, we have nationwide tables on which division preforms the 'best' and these tables change all the time,

i would get an idea of where you want to live and then if possible get to know the sales neg and site manager before you hand over your hard earned cash,

is it possible for you to talk to existing residences, ask the council, chat to tennants,

the other thing i think is important is how badly you need housing, most of the social housing is well built but the snagging lists take second place as they have to go though the housing office before hitting us, this makes the time you wait for repair appear to be longer,

you as a customer think you have waited too long for your repairs, but in real terms it is just about procedure and reporting faults than any fault on the builders side,

snagging will always feature in any new build, always, always,

at the end of the day it is a man made product, often the response from the customer is measured by thier own expectations, how quickly do they think things should be done, how quickly they think things should be fixed, what thier experience of actually living on their chosen site is like is a huge factor, all of this will be taken in to account when they are judging how well they feel the house has been built,

please feel free to ask any questions and i will answer as honestly as possible