When does a new build stop being a new built

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I was looking through right move with a friend. I suggested a house that fit all her criteria. She replied no good we don't like new builds! That's fine but this house was built in 2005.

I knew what she meant. It's the more modern style and a relatively new estate but it's still 20 years old.

So when does a new build stop being called a new build

I’ve often wondered, I’ve been in mine for 12 years and still call it a new build… mostly to acknowledge the building method.

Well on MN anything newer than Victorian, possibly Edwardian, at a push, is a new build.

In the rest of the world, probably after 3 years. I watch No Demo Reno a US interior design programme, and on that, any house over 3 years old is ‘established’.

In that context I’d say pretty much anything post 1990’s would be ruled out.

I have heard people talk about Victorian houses, 50s houses , 70s houses. Not sure I have ever heard someone say an 80/90s houses. Maybe new build includes them

Interesting question, OP! It's made me realise that, while DH and I have lived on the same estate since it went up 1984 and definitely consider it "established" overall, we still refer to the first five houses on the corner of the estate as "the show homes".

I think the building regulations were tightened up in maybe 2003 so I would consider up to 20 years old. Homes build in the last 20 years will have much better energy performance certification than older properties. AB ratings vs C/D/E for older homes.

I think of anything 90s onwards as a new build because they all basically look the same, the houses on housing estates built by developers anyway. There's been no real architectural shift since then. There are houses being built down the road from me that look almost exactly the same as the house I grew up in hundreds of miles away in the 90s. It's a bit boring isn't it.

I live in a house that was built in 1954, my elderly neighbour (mid 90s) told me it was the original showhouse.

I think of my Grandma’s as a new build and it was built in the early 90s. People can be snobby but every house was a ‘new build’ once, including all the National Trust houses you go to 😂

There are different eras of quality and style.

My parents lived in a house built in 1980. Big garden well built of modern materials. Not too cold but not particularly well insulated. I don't think it had asbestos - something to watch out for in older houses.

I think house built quality has gradually decreased over time. I live in a house that was built around 2003. The brickwork is pretty good quality but some of the out of sight internal bodging (stuff that has been done where people cannot see it) has to be seen to be believed. I still think houses built up to the GFC are of "reasonable" quality. Of course the style is often a bit compromised with smaller gardens and garages you cannot really fit cars in.

I think post GFC housebuilding quality plummeted again. I think post that time there has never been so many complaints about poor quality housing in the media. I would be extremely wary of buying a post 2007 house.

The positive things I think about say post 2015 houses are a lot of them are incredibly energy efficient and hardly require any heating.

For me, it's refer to the estate / house type i.e. small garden, possibly thinner walls, modern cars won't fit in the garage.

I see anything 90s onwards as a new build.

My house is late 80’s I wouldn’t say it was a new build as the internal walls are actual block built walls rather than the thin plasterboard partitions you get in current new builds. I’d probably class new builds as anything in the last 20 years because of the building style, small windows, thin walls etc

For me a new build is one that has crappy plasterboard internal walls. That is thrown up with breeze blocks instead of proper bricks. They usually go hand in hand with small rooms, lack of storage and small gardens so your neighbours feel on top of you. This style will always be known as newbuild even in 200 years, providing they stay up long enough to be around.

For us when we were looking for houses it's about the way it's built rather than the year,

old style houses are proper brick built houses with thick brick & plaster walls whereas new builds are all timber frames and plasterboard

Ohh interesting! In my head a new build is brand new - so it’s only a new build if you’re the first people to live in it. Anything built in the last 10-20 years I’d call newish/recent and anything before the last century I’d define by its era/decade. Anything pre-1970 I’d think of as an old house and anything pre-1940 would be a period property. No idea where I got these specificities from…

I think post 2000 would be my guess - I definitely associate them with thin internal walls and sound carrying.

On the plus side they are more likely to have kitchens built to house washing machine ms and dishwasher etc, unlike the kitchens of the many between-the-wars semis.

Why sound carrying ?

Sound carrying in Victorian terraces is amongst the worst I have heard. Simply because they had no idea on how to design to stop it, other than making the walls thicker.

New build houses are generally a lot better for suppressing sounds because construction methods have moved on and there are a wider variety of different materials available for sound suppression.

I’m in a new build 2023, with brick walls, big rooms and a good sized south facing garden, not all new builds are “boxes”

In our house I couldn’t hear the children in their rooms as much as I could when I babysat for friends on a new estate. There was a noticeable difference.

Maybe it was just louder kids 😉

Interesting question. I live in the US where the notion of "new build" is probably different because housing stock generally is younger than in the UK. We are the only family to have lived in our house, and it was built in 2003. I no longer think of it as a new build, and I don't think anyone else would either, but I can't pinpoint when that happened, probably about 5-7 years after we moved in.