"It's a shame you can't get a new build"

My friend recently bought a new build home, on a more ‘aspirational’ estate where some thought has been put into the individual design and style of the houses, and the roads and communal areas quite nicely landscaped, however she has had so many problems with the house and the road is still unfinished. In recent storms, one of the chimneys came off a house and it was rumoured to have been made from some kind of high spec polystyrene! I shall certainly be directing my dcs towards the nice sturdy Victorian / Thirties terraces when the time comes for them to buy.

Another, here, who wouldn’t touch a new build (particularly one built by one of the big UK-wide developers).

You’re likely to get something that’s been thrown up as quickly as humanly possible by ‘trades’ who are incentivised to build for speed and screw the quality. It’ll have a snagging list as long as your arm and you’ll struggle to get the issues rectified (the 10 year ‘guarantees’ are a joke).

You might well find you’re parking on an unfinished road for years, which will be left in that state whilst the developer argues with the council about getting the new streets adopted. You’ll probably not have bus access and the roads will all be just over one car wide, which means you’ll struggle to drive through because everyone will have parked their second cars up on the pavements, largely because the houses only come with one space.

I would hate to live in a new build, especially in hot weather like this! The thought of living cheek by jowl, hearing everything that’s going on in my neighbours’ gardens would be hell to me. Give me a period property any day.

@Another2Cats, interesting comparisons. My favourite by far is the thirties house. It has character and feels very homely at the same time.

No thanks to a crappy new build. Small rooms, likely to be issued (potentially going on for years).

OP has dodged a bullet by not being able to buy one. Blessing in disguise, really.

I haven't read all the replies and can't speak of all new builds but do know of a good few.

The ones I've been into you could share a nail with the neighbour and hang a picture on each end of it the walls are so thin.

I've also been into many a terraced property but new builds seem to feel more crammed in than a row of terraced.

A friend recently bought a new build and has seven of the surrounding properties over looking their garden so as shinny as a new build looks it's not all bells and whistles.

You've saved hard to buy your first property and it'll be you paying the bills it's your choice as to which type you buy.

Good luck in your search hopefully soon you'll be a happy home owner(ish).

My parents are in their seventies.

they bought their first home in in the 1970s. Central heating, indoor toilet, modern kitchen with built in appliances. Driveway!

They both grew up in rented homes with outdoor loos, no central heating. They bought a new build with a garden, a garage, central heating! The height of sophistication!

New builds are generally vile. A recently renovated older property has bags more character and likely be roomier and have a proper sized garden too.

OR she owns a new home and lots of posters are talking utter nonsense about them all losing value or being all shit, which is pretty insulting really

Damn, my cover has been blown 🤣

Around here new builds are so overpriced. Tiny rooms and tiny gardens. You get much more for your money with old builds.

sorry what are you talking about? Most lenders won’t do a 100% mortgage on a new build? Yeah because most don’t anyway.

i literally make mortgages for a living. This isn’t a thing. I’ve worked at niche lenders and big banks. Some won’t lend when you’ve got a htb equity loan in the background.

they don’t enter into negative equity in the first few years or else no lender would offer a 90% LTV mortgage or frankly any other mortgage on an asset that will go down in value. Negative equity is a huge problem for lenders they wouldn’t enter into a deal if this was a known fact.

what you mean is that new builds and htb artificially inflate the price so they might not rise as fast as other similar size (yet older) houses in the area. My house is new, and in 5 years it’s gone up between 80-90k. I had it valued by surveyor.

I always filt r out new builds in my hous searches. Some are lovely I'm sure but most near me are tiny with inadequate parking.

"...and knowing that as DH and I were getting older it was slipping away from us,"

I totally get what you mean. My parents were thinking along the same lines as you but then they found a very nice 1970s bungalow with a vey manageable, small, garden.

My mother was starting to have trouble walking up stairs so a bungalow was fantastic. It was also a lot cheaper than the new build properties they were looking at which allowed them to release some capital.

We bought a new build flat as our first home woth a view to make some profit to buy the 1970s semi we're in now.
I much prefer the semi. More scope for development but also bigger land. We looked at new builds again when we bought this and the gardens were tiny and no storage in the houses at all.

I think @fannyfiggs might just be the ceo of Barratt homes or similar, undercover on mumsnet 🤭

Yep, not dissing those who have bought and love their new builds but the surveying industry is well aware that the vast majority are poorly built without longevity in mind…. @itscominghomeee , I’d consider not having a new build a lucky escape….

Yes, she should have imagined it was a Georgian vicarage, that would change everything.

New builds have to be up there with UPFs and eating a dessert that isn’t just fruit and yoghurt in terms of the things that send out some kind of klaxon for people on mumsnet to tell you they could neverrrrrrrr. Could neverrrr eat a ready-made Swiss chocolate roll in a new build! I’d rather die!!!!!

OP, your mum’s comments are a bit weird and I can see why you’d find them dismissive given the effort you’ve put into getting on the ladder. Maybe she’s had bad experiences living in old houses, who knows? Don’t let whatever is driving her to make these comments get to you. We can’t all live in the same type of house as each other after all, it’s simply not feasible.

If your new build was a small square box with no personality, that's your fault for having no imagination.

You couldn’t give me a new build, shit quality, small oddly shaped rooms, hugely overlooked and postage stamp size gardens.

A new build would
have to be
one of
the
WORST
investments you
could make

"...and has more than doubled in value since we built it."

"...since WE built it"

It sounds very much as though this is a one-off build and you have engaged an architect to design it or used one of the self build design and build companies?

Many people, if they were in the position to be able to afford this option would, I am sure, go for it as well (myself included).

But we are not talking about that here. We are talking about modern new build housing estates which might typically have 200 or 300, or even more, homes being built on them.

That is a very different situation from yours. I am sure that many on MN would be jealous of you being in a position to build your own home.

It's a very different story buying a terraced house on a modern day estate. Just go and have a look around one sometime.

I always associate new builds with starter homes. We bought a new build as our first home and then moved into a lovely (quirky) Georgian house. Would much rather have something with a bit of character.