To think people can be really snobby/rude about new build houses?

[TheSubtleKnifeAndFork]

Just that really... I know they're not to everyone's taste but since we bought ours we've had some really rude comments about it. One person even asked me outright (with a real sneer) "Why on earth would anyone ever buy a new build?"... We're happy with it, which I know is all that matters, but I'm a bit gobsmacked by some of the outright rudeness about our new home. For example I've never particularly fancied living in a bungalow, but I wouldn't say that to someone who lived in one, or was thinking of buying one!

Don't get me wrong, I love character properties too (our first home was an older house which we renovated) but equally I don't get why buying a new build is so frowned upon? Or is is just my circle of acquaintance where people seem to have an issue with them?

There is no accounting for taste.

Ooh snap,Bluntness100. I wonder if you live in my National Trust village

No, i don't live in a national trust village, sorry.

They look lovely from the outside but if you’re tall, constantly stooping and banging your head on beams is not ideal

To be honest, mine has very high ceilings and large rooms. So no stooping, but I would hazard a guess that lower ceiling rooms are easier to heat, I think that was the point.

As said, my issue is downstairs, and yes I keep the house warm, but I won't lie and say it's efficient downstairs, it's not.

I've also lived in a new build. It was rented, not owned like my current one, and yes, efficient, but much less character, on balance I prefer older properties, but I can't say they don't come with draw backs. I think most properties do.

I agree with pp's who say some people will always have a negative comment on any house..my SiL saw our first large Edwardian Semi and said ' Oh , such a pity its got a ghost ' , silly cow , then when we moved to a bigger place in a really great location for schools etc she said ' but it's overlooked' ., which it was only if the residents 200 yards away at the back had a telescope.!
I let it all pass as she is a controlling narcissitic bitch and now have nothing more to do with her...
later after our kids had grown we moved to a 60's bungalow and it has had just as many challenges regarding build quality.But its all done now and except for me taking a while to get used to a much smaller space it is great..no £1000 heating bills!!
I have always felt that people who feel the need to denigrate what others have or do are insecure arseholes , best ignored..

Villanelle123. Not necessarily if you buy carefully. We have made money on the last two new builds that we bought and sold and stayed in them four and five years respectively.

Bluntness100 No the point was that not all old houses have large rooms and high ceilings. The listed thatched cottages down my lane certainly don’t. Neither do all new builds have small rooms and low ceilings. Mine doesn’t. It’s got high ceilings (including a vaulted ceiling in the master bedroom) and spacious rooms - I can easily sit 10 at my dining room table.) It’s not that I dislike old houses, I would happily buy one...but I love my underfloor heating and it’s rare to come across an older property with that!

but I love my underfloor heating and it’s rare to come across an older property with that!

Not true. Every Victorian in Fulham has them, as far as I can tell.

On the whole it’s true though.

Bunsy girl, I think it's great you love your home so much, and it sounds fab with vaulted ceilings, huge rooms, under floor heating, massive dining room etc.

My point is most properties come with a draw back or compromise, but it's lovely yours doesn't.

I think its the size, the regulations on how big rooms have to be has changed to smaller sizes. Also builders can now sign off on there own work instead of getting an independent worker to check the build and electric etc. That's why I'd stay clear of a new build but I also think it's them being jealous the new kitchens and bathrooms and beautiful floors unmarked walls and perfect garden who wouldn't be. It's either the over informed and cautionary people or people that wish they could have one lol 😂 ignore them if your happy that's all that matters.

Not snobbery but people just want more for their money which you don't get with a new build. They are often small, cramped, shit overlooked gardens, and too expensive.

My experience of U.K. new builds:

• thin walls
• no or very little storage
• low (and leaky) ceilings
• small rooms
• unfinished finishes
• general lack of character
• very close to neighbours

New builds in the US are better - bigger, more robust, more variety, less crammed in. New build is seen as a good thing not a bad thing. I suppose land is more plentiful and cheap, so people can afford to invest more in the build quality.

My house is three months old and owning a newbuild was a major bucket list thing for me.

My house is huge and the feeling of moving in knowing that you have a brand new kitchen, new appliances, new bathrooms (three of them), new roof, new windows, new carpets, flooring, plastering, new solid oak doors etc etc is amazing.

Bluntness100 No the point was that not all old houses have large rooms and high ceilings. The listed thatched cottages down my lane certainly don’t. Neither do all new builds have small rooms and low ceilings. Mine doesn’t

My 17th C cottage had low beamed ceilings, tiny windows with 3 foot window sills and walls over 2 feet thick! It was also devoid of sunlight (no free solar heating coming in) and a bugger to maintain. Every period feature cost us an arm and a leg to maintain, restore or replace. No en-suite, no extra space and a constantly plugged in dehumidifier to counteract the problem we created by installing double glazing and draft proofing etc. It had a small garden (converted from the previous courtyard as 17th century weavers didn't have time to garden!)

My new build is huge - insulated to class A, has a very big garden and a proper fire (wood burner). Plenty of parking spaces and double garage and 2 en suites.

I'd never go 'period' again and I've tried properties from every period in history bar the Stone Age.

I would not dream of criticising anyone's choice of anything. It is a personal matter and none of my business. If you like the new builds, and you are happy then why should anyone else's views bother you.

I have a personal dislike for closed estates, I would never choose to live on one. I don't like any house that has undergone an extension, I would stay clear of them.

My own house has been totally and traditionally rebuilt and is now on the market. It is an older property with very large bright sunny rooms, all fittings are new, all white goods are new. If anyone is interested in a four bedroomed, two bathroom property, do let me know. End of Advert.

Interesting that lots of people find new builds cheaper. It's the other way around here. We'd have had to pay 20% more than we did for our 30s semi for a semi with roughly similar bedroom space (though not all the bedrooms would have been the doubles we needed) but less living space than our kitchen diner. We have 2 more decent sized reception rooms on top of that. As well as the completely inadequate living space, it would have been a town house, which would have been no good, given my already dodgy knees and hips.

We’ve lived in a 70s house, a flat in a converted Victorian house, a cottage built in 1850, a wooden house in New Zealand and a brand new house on a new estate in the UK. I love the character of an older horse, but it’s been phenomenal being able to call customer services about every little niggle and getting it fixed under the new build guarantee. We’ve loved it! Our heating bill is also ridiculously low due to insulation and compliant boiler, and as for having multiple toilets and bathrooms,I’m a convert to the new build.

This is not so much a thread about houses as manners. Your friend was rude and you should try to shrug off her ill bred comments and enjoy your house.

32 years ago my DH and I bought a house built in the 1930’s from an older lady who could not keep it maintained and it took over 20 years and all our money and attention to get it how we want it. It now looks what it always was:- a character detached with a large garden.

Friends of us told us they thought we had ‘bought a pup’ when they first saw it. You cannot win and you cannot please everyone. Our house is half old and half new. The old part is characterful, gorgeous and freezing cold as it is uninsulated so it costs a fortune to heat. The new part is practical and toastily warm.

My 17th C cottage had low beamed ceilings, tiny windows with 3 foot window sills and walls over 2 feet thick! It was also devoid of sunlight (no free solar heating coming in) and a bugger to maintain. Every period feature cost us an arm and a leg to maintain, restore or replace. No en-suite, no extra space and a constantly plugged in dehumidifier to counteract the problem we created by installing double glazing and draft proofing etc. It had a small garden (converted from the previous courtyard as 17th century weavers didn't have time to garden!)My new build is huge - insulated to class A, has a very big garden and a proper fire (wood burner). Plenty of parking spaces and double garage and 2 en suites

I don't understand your comparison. You must understand that all old properties are not small with small windows and small gardens, nor do they all have period features that need restoring? The fact you bought one like that, doesn't mean they all are.

You can get small new builds, small old houses, big new builds and big old houses, and everything in between.

If you're trying to say you couldn't afford a larger older property on the same size as your new build, then I get the point.

I do think what type of house you chose to live in is a personal choice, if some folks prefer new builds, and some prefer older character properties, that's fine. But no one should be slagging off someone else's home.

Interesting that lots of people find new builds cheaper. It's the other way around here

At the lower end of the market it is where I live too. A two bed terrace goes for about 350, recently some new builds went up and the price is about 100k more.

However at the higher end, it costs much more for a older property than it does a new build, so approx 600 for a new build three bed, where as the older ones are close to 1m. Four bed plus and the price gets close to doubling. But the houses come with much bigger plots of land, and have generally been done up to a very high standard inside.

We've just moved from a 200 year old cottage with bags of character (and rising damp, and a need for a new roof...) into a new build and I absolutely love it! Rooms are big, garden is perfect (not so big I'm daunted but big enough to have all I'd like in it and room for football kicking around etc), acoustic walls so wonderfully quiet and we chose a plot which backs onto the parking area so not at all overlooked. We just had really high winds for a couple of nights and not worrying about how many slates we might be about to lose was so good!

No one's been rude about it but then I'd have no qualms in telling people what I thought of their rudeness so maybe that prevents the comments a bit?!

I actually find it really odd that anyone really cares that much about someone else's house.

I’m in my 3rd new build & never had an issue with any of them, minor issues of snagging at end of first year which builder puts to right - & I mean minor.. The one I am in now certainly isn’t small and dark with low ceilings - I am 5ft 11 & even on tip toes with arms extended I can’t reach the ceiling. It’s nowhere near at the top end of the market either, but, the rooms are large & there is very good storage. I love the blank canvas of a new property, with no one having lived there before & you certainly can put your own mark on it. I equally love the period features of older houses, but, cannot be bothered with the work & time involved & don’t have copious amounts of money either, to get it to look how I want it to look. All in all it’s each to their own & i’d Ignore rude comments - that’s the great British public for you, always feel they have to give an opinion with a horror story to match. Ignore it all and enjoy your lovely new home

There's 3 new build estates by me.
1 built about 12 years ago, one about 5 years ago and the last one is still being built but people are living there.

The first 2 new build estates are horrible.
All the houses are tiny, on top of each other and the most bizzare have postage stamp front gardens no drive and not very wide roads. I would hate to live in one of those.

The estate they're still building is completly different. The houses are in proportion not on top of each other, you can fit a single bed in the box room and it looks like a nice estate to live.

I wouldn't touch an old council property here as 99% of the work done to it is a bodge job. Even though I would probably prefer it to a new build.

As long as your happy in your house let others say what they want.

Interesting topic. Andrew Marr even addressed it in one of his documentaries - Pure snobbery and nostalgia, that's the bottom line according to this documentary. He went on along the lines of us living in an island that is very well rooted to its ways and the nostalgia of "the old good days". He mentioned that we don't see that many new innovative architecture outside of London, precisely because of that.

Personally, I think that the reputation of newly build houses and how well constructed they are is not the best, but I'm not sure if the snobs people that look down on your house know this.

If it’s well built it should be a problem. In my experience though new houses are often built with stud partition walls internally with no insulation and therefore no soundproofing. You can hear every noice...

Interesting topic
I came out of trades 6-7yrs ago
Prior to which I had mostly been employed in shop fitting, however did a 6mth stink at wimpy homes around 2007.....!!! EEK!!
Hollow core doors, flush mounted hinges, MDFskirting, archatrive, stairs etc etc floorboards (nasty chipboard) glued down. Internal Walls 50mm tin and track with plasterboard. At the time they were called 3 bed affordables. The quality was utter shite. After 6mths I went back to shop fitting . I know a lot of new builds are actually very good but the poor ones are grim.