BELLWAY HOMES DO NOT BUY

This is key. Our previous home was a new build and was one of 7. Small local builder. The quality and workmanship were second to none. The extras they put in as standard (eg underfloor heating under the beautiful Italian kitchen tiles) were unreal.

The thing is with an older house you can get a survey and negotiate the price to do the jobs.

New builds you can’t do this and even worse they sign off their own building control! My friend discovered after a few months that one of their rooms didn’t have proper insulation!

I bought one as a single thirty something woman in 2000. It was a nightmare and I felt gutted and conned. Basically they have date targets and rush to finish them, get you in and expect to sort out any problems after you move in. I had pages and pages of snags, some of which they told me as I was moving in.
A cracked sink, cracked window, badly scratched kitchen work top. I cut my hand on a jagged ceramic tile on the kitchen windowsill. Loads of cosmetic snags. It really got me down but I had to accept in my mind about some stuff and let it go (such as my bay was longer on one side than the other so wasn’t square).
Also the site office would send someone around and it usually was the same man, one day he was a plasterer, next a plumber, a jack of all trades and master of none.
The day I moved in, a very cold winter’s day, late Friday when they finally gave me the keys I found I had no heating or hot water. It was freezing. The site office told me that someone would be round but they all disappeared for the weekend.
Another time I had to borrow a friend’s car, which was running on leaded petrol. I then discovered that my integral garage had not been sealed from the house as my own carbon monoxide detector was showing high readings when I removed or put the car in the garage!
I hated giving them the keys to my house to sort things out when I wasn’t there, it was a massive invasion of my privacy. At one point I learned that my front door keys had been missing from the site office for weeks! I went ballistic on the site manager and my locks were changed immediately. I had indeed thought that I had heard someone put a key in my door one night, but I always leave the keys in the locks so the door could not have been opened.
I had to let things ‘go’ in my mind about the house and after accepting it, I did enjoy living there.

@ChristmasPudd1990

Mostly people who can only buy with shared ownership so people that can't get on the property ladder any other way

What a snobby and judgemental comment!
There aren't any shared ownership on our development (there are some HA)
Myself and our neighbours bought our houses just the same as anyone living in an old house, just because it's not for you that doesn't diminish our choice

@ShapedLikeAPastry

*If I'd bought a brand-new house I'd be absolutely furious to have had to sort 'a couple of new front doors', flooring and a mud pit of a garden all in the space of 2.5 years!

I'd never buy a new build*.

I previously had an old house and it was a nightmare, poorly insulated, the boiler packed up, tiles slipped on the roof etc. was a complete money pit in terms of repairs and bills were astronomical, would hate to think what they are now.
Only one bathroom, kitchen was over 20yrs old so really needed modernising, plumbing needed improving as water pressure wasn't great the list went on

None of these things an issue with my new build, lovely modern clean lines, the "issues" I had in the new build were absolutely nothing to stress over, just a call to someone to fix them.. was like renting again 😂

Each to their own, but I'd never buy an old house again, I'd do my research as I did with this estate and never look back

I wouldn't buy a new build from a big company - crest, bellway, persimmon, bloor, taylor wimpey etc

They don't care about after sales, they can always build more and people buy them because they think a well known name is a mark of quality.

It does depend on what your budget is. Lots of buyers buy on vast new build estates and get carried away with the look of the Show Flat not really recognising that they dont live like this (and there are no wardrobes in the bedroom and cut down sized sofas!).

There are lots of issues with older houses too. Patched up by sellers awful DIY. Problems just left to hopefully sort themselves out which they never do. I work in property and when selling my parents house it wasnt in a good state. A lot of old people are not capable of sorting out issues themselves so the doors are just shut. When I cleared the house I realised just what Mum had been hiding. The heating system was hanging by a thread. Rads not working in one room. Water being either very hot or stone cold. They got used to it and I found they had been having a flannel wash for at least 2 years!

Sorry to derail slightly but I have brought both new builds and older houses. If I had my time again depending on where I was looking I would go for a new build on a very small development with a small company builder. In parts of London though I would almost be forced to look at an older house as there are less new build developments i.e Chiswick or Barnes.

Mostly people who can only buy with shared ownership so people that can't get on the property ladder any other way.

I would never buy on new build on a large estate. They are building one near us that we walk past regularly with the dog. The houses are priced at over £800k for a 3 bed (SE) and the builders are just chucking them up. I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole.

We looked into a new built but we weren't impressed. They are soulless rabbit hutches with no room to extend or you eat into the postage stamp sized garden. We joined various Facebook groups and seeing so many issues people have had,we decided to buy a 1950s house.

Nonsense. A brick build will last far longer than 50 years.

Have you paid for a professional to conduct an inspection and report? Because I follow some on SM & I’ve seen fake air bricks on properties, wall insulation missing between bricks, issues in the loft space with things not being done correctly. Bannisters installed not square. Everything you mentioned (excl heating) is ‘cosmetic’ - infuriating, wrong and should be corrected, but cosmetic. But my concern would be that if what you found is to the untrained eye, what’s lurking underneath that you don’t know about.

What is it you're not happy with in regards to the block paving?

I know you’re upset and want different answers to your last thread, but I’m afraid my answer would be the same.

Get a professional snagger report.

Follow the complaints and escalation process.

And (for anyone else who might find themselves in this position) don’t give away all your leverage by giving them a one-star review in anger before they had a chance to fix it.

That tilling is shocking!

So I have brought from a 100 year old house to a new build but brought from a small builder last time. We had a snag report and couldn’t be happier. These larger estates I wouldn’t be keen on.

No the reason why lenders can appear to be unwilling to consider new builds is down to saturation and the level of risk they want to accept. For example if an estate has 250 new builds Nationwide will only want to mortgage 50 of those. They don't want to take on too many houses per estate - the risk needs to be spread. Which is why they can appear to be unwilling but really it's just risk based.