Old v New House WWYD?

[PurpleFlower1983]

Sorry, posting here for traffic.

Obviously this is hypothetical at the moment as no one can buy/sell but I was looking for some advice re houses. We currently live in a 4 bed end terrace in a Northern town. It’s a nice house with period features and good size bedrooms with features. The upstairs is large and downstairs has a smallish Victorian sitting room with a nice bay window/traditional fireplace and a good size dining kitchen. The staircase is central with a narrow hallway as we have an access passage to the back on our land, shared with next door (they come through our front garden to get to it). We have a decent size garden for a house of this kind with large patio, small lawn, space for a shed etc. There is also a small front garden.

I bought the house as a fixer upper 9 years ago for £100k before I met my husband and have spent around 40k on it with new bathrooms, new kitchen, new windows, restoring fireplace etc. It’s still not fully finished as the large attic room needs velux windows and redecorating and there are a quite a few other jobs that need sorting but I love the house.

We are now a family of 3 with a 14 month old. We would like another child in the next couple of years. While there is loads of space upstairs, we are fast outgrowing the downstairs, it was perfect for 2 but not so great for more. We could put an extension on the back to have a larger kitchen/dining living space but depending on how much this would cost, or if we would get planning permission, it would probably take the cost of renovations above the ceiling price of the street which is around £160-£170k for houses of this kind. It would also make the garden much smaller. Parking is a nightmare as it’s all on street and it’s not somewhere children could play out due to the busy roads. We also have some damp issues downstairs and around the chimney in the bedroom which will cost a fair amount to sort. The energy bills are very high too.

My husband is about to inherit some money and is keen to buy a new build locally to us. There are only a few houses left on a local new development, it’s nice, wide roads, decent parking and close to a huge park and brand new leisure centre. The house is just above £300k. I have never wanted a new build as I love period properties which is why I bought this one but it is a nice house with a south west facing garden. There is a green space adjacent and the people seem really friendly. There is a garage and parking for 2 cars. The builder also does part exchange at full market value.

Emotionally I am attached to this house but practically I can see the benefits of the new one. I’d love my DD to learn to ride a bike in the street and feel she can play out safely etc.

We have been looking at houses for a while. The detached period ones I like in the area tend to go between £300 and £450k depending on condition with the cheaper needing lots of work done.I’m not too keen on this as I know how much of a money pit they can be and right now we may not have the funds to throw at it. There are also not many around and detached ones are few and far between. I don’t want to buy a house built in the 60s/70s as I’m not too keen to be honest. We do want to stay in the area for now due to elderly/ill family.

I suppose this is a what would you do or do you have any experience going from old to new? Would you wait? We may miss out on these particular new ones as the inheritance is not through yet and depends on a house sale.

@PinkCrayon that’s good to know. This one has green space too and wide roads. Only parking for 2 cars but you could add more if you paved the front.

Wexone
Definitely a new build. They were still building the estate so you had to drive through the building works to get to it.

It was advertised as a 5 bed town house house.

All the bedrooms weren’t bad size but the living room was very badly designed.

The only possible wall to have a sofa on had a radiator . One wall had the French windows which had about a metre of wall either side. 1 wall was taken up with the gap to the kitchen and a door to the hall. The only other wall had you looking into the kitchen over the dining table. If you moved the dining table to the other end of the room it would have interfered with the t.v

It was basically the same layout as my friends 70s build townhouse where the living room is actually upstairs which takes up 2 of the 5 bedrooms and the living room is a nice dining room.

How anyone would think that living room could house 4 children and 2 adults. The living room had barely enough room for the small 2 seater sofa which was placed across the French windows

It was definitely one of the most stupid layouts I have seen

I think you've answered your own question in your comments throughout this thread.

I think you need to look at your life in stages. Yes, you love your current house and you are emotionally attached to it because of the work you put in. But that was what suited you before you were married with children. Your life has moved on now and you can see that the house is now too small, particularly downstairs. Having an extension built with young kids in the house is not ideal.

Another thing is the comment you made about your 'happy childhood with kids on the street'. I think you need to be consider what's best for your kids as they're growing up. The extra space of the new build will also make your life easier in terms of cleaning and maintenance.

Then, when your kids have grown up and left you can always move to another period property and by that stage you will probably want to downsize anyway.

@Oliversmumsarmy sounds very strange. I hope you mentioned that in the review. My partner has been working on a new build estate and not one house has rads. They are actually nice houses a good mix of one bed apartment all the way up to 5 bed detached houses. Good layout too. They have soar panels and underfloor heating . I cant deal with radiators any more, so ugly take up so much space aswell.

So move then if having more space is more important to you. I wouldn’t move if I had four bedrooms, one child and loved my house. I’d just allocate a bedroom as a playroom and put away the baby’s things when I have guests. You did ask WWYD!

Incidentally if you do decide to move and you’re in Liverpool or nearby, please let me know because I’m looking to move to a house like yours

I would avoid a new build at all costs.

cantfixstupid has it.

You already have a small child, a toddler. You hope to have another child. Doing up a house with not just one but two small children is quite different from doing it without them. Think about the logistics: time, safety, practicalities. With the new build your time will be your own - children are small for such a short time!

@PurpleFlower1983 it's so tough!

New builds vary widely - I would avoid ones built in the 1990s as they are the ones that give new builds a bad name - there wasn't the same regulations etc. in place at that time.

We lived a new build flat (built 2011) in the Home Counties for 8 years and sold this January (to our surprise made £140,000 profit). So they can hold or increases their value.

It was great, no noise issues, well built and spacious! Master bedroom had an en-suite (which almost all of them do).

More spacious than the current 1950s semi we are renting. We couldn't fit all our stuff in the house but luckily there is a garage that we can store it in.

Do you know which properties are still available on the site? Is it possible to see what the other new builds have sold for? Is it in the catchment area for the good primary/secondary schools?

Did you have a chance to look round any of the properties before lockdown? It's the only way to get a sense of the quality of workmanship. My father-in-law is a joiner and has worked on building sites so is really handy when we've been looking round. If you have some one like that in the family might be worth bring them along for a second viewing.

It's probably worth seeing what the market will be like post-lockdown. Some of the sales of the properties may fall through and prices may come down so you may get a good deal.

Things to consider asking the new build company are:

• will they pay the stamp duty?
• will they chuck in any upgrades for free?
• are there any annual maintenance fees? (for maintaining communal landscaping, street lights etc.).

Definitely ask people who have already moved in:

• have there been any issues?
• how long has it taken the company to sort snagging?
• what are the neighbours like?

It tough when you have a vision of the kind of home you want to raise your kids in vs the reality of the options available.

OPTION A - the ideal scenario
Those period properties that need less work but are out of your price range may come down just enough for you to afford post-Corona

OPTION B
If you do all the research on the new build then I think this could be a fab option. You get to do all the 'fun' decorating and get on with life, days out, holidays etc.

OPTION C
Stay put, but apply for Kirstie and Phil's Love It or List It. Lol.

I've been typing for a while now so I'm guessing this will be an epic post no-one will read, haha!

We bought a detached newbuild for a sum that would have just about bought us a 2 bed flat in our home town. Two parking spaces, garage, 15 minutes to the station, lovely neighbours of about our age with kids about our DC's age, green spaces and playgrounds all over the place. The house is 12 years old, attractive-looking and solid. Warm in the winter and easy to cool down in the summer. It's got plenty of loft space as have all of the houses on our estate. Everything works. The kitchen is starting to look a bit tired but that's hardly unique to a newbuild. The layout of the house is incredibly family friendly, all of the rooms are a good size and we're really happy here.

I was very snotty about newbuilds when I was growing up in my parents' disintegrating Edwardian semi (the back wall of our neighbour's house actually had to be stapled back on at one point), in my almost tropically damp terraced Victorian flat with its single-glazed rattling windows in peeling frames, and in my more glamorous mansion flat that was so bitterly cold in the winter that we basically lived in bed with the electric blanket. Some newbuilds are badly built, yes, but so are some older houses. I'd go and have a look at the ones your husband wants to buy and see what you think.

Is there no middle ground between your £1-£200k period house and a £300k new build?

I always lived in Victorian house and loved them but we moved for practical reasons and now have a 3 bed 1930s semi. Have to admit it's not your average 1930s semi as it has unusual features like wood panelling in the hallway and 3 double bedrooms instead of a box room but we love it and put in period fireplaces again which has improved the character a lot. We still have the original leaded french doors. There is a lot you can do to make a 30s house lovely and interesting but without the damp of a Victorian house and they're rock solid.

I worried we'd end up with a new build, too many problems I think not least the legal and financial trickery they often come with but the nice patch of green may not stay green and the parking could be a problem and is in many new areas.

I've known around 10 people who've bought new builds in the last 15 years or so, and every single one of them has had problems with the build quality. And every one of them has found the developers are a nightmare to deal with and won't fix them even when the problems become apparent in the first few weeks after purchase.

Some of them have been ridiculous, but quite minor, eg the bathwater not running away because the wastepipe sloped slightly uphill, another found that she couldn't close one of the bedroom doors because it hadn't been planed off enough. They were easy/cheap enough to remedy, but the companies just wouldn't get them sorted.

Two of them have been dreadful. One friend ended up in a 4-year saga of endless workmen and ruined furnishings. She had to claim on her insurance for the furniture and for the restoration of an inlaid Georgian table, and her premiums went through the roof. In the end, her achitect brother redesigned the bit that caused the problem and she had it fixed at her own expense.

Another one had dreadful drainage issues in her small rear garden and couldn't set foot outside for weeks at a time as the back garden had become a pond. She eventually had it all paved with a slight fall into a gravelled soakaway.

Another one paid extra for a parking space, there was just one at the rear of the row. She was surprised by how generous the size of it was. Then some neighbours moved in and claimed it was theirs. The developers had sold 2 parking spaces in a space barely 10' wide. She wanted to keep her space and the developers eventually compensated the neighbours, but only after they'd got solicitors involved.

The only new-build I'd buy would be one my fantastic builder BIL built. He'd be so mortified by anything less than perfect he'd move heaven and earth to sort it out.

And you pay a premium for new-builds like you pay extra for new cars. It doesn't matter if you're going to stay there for years, but if your job moves hundreds of miles away and you have to sell after a couple of years, you're likely to lose money.

Just some helpful hints op, you may find that the development has its own neighbourhood Facebook group, alot of them do, it's actually really lovely getting to know people and helps you see if there are any common problems and how happy people are overall, Before I moved in I added the group to see if there were many problems, the sales women had also bought houses on the site so that gave me confidence and I could see when walking around people were friendly and seemed happy, you will always get snagging that you notice after you have moved in ours was rectified and so was all of my neighbours.
I did alot of research before buying my house, I looked at alot of show homes one particular house builders showhome I went to look at had a house on the site all boarded up, the sales women were going for the hard sell trying to sell me one of their houses and when I asked about the house she said it wasn't one of 'theirs' I looked at her puzzled and then the other lady chirped in that it wasn't one of theirs anymore as it was sold to someone? She said there was nothing wrong with the house boarded up, when I went home I googled the boarded up house online and it turns out the person who had bought the house had taken the house builder to court as the house was 'unliveable.'
There is a site near our development that is the same house builder as that house and when talking to friends on there their aftercare is no where near as good as ours.
I don't regret buying mine having my kids beable to play out safely was one of the massive bonuses too, there are alot of kids out playing in the summer and it's really lovely for them. I am sure yours will be the same op with all the green space.
Best of luck with whatever you decide.

If you do go for a new build try and get one with a solar panel. I have a large 4 bedroom house and my dual fuel is only £67 per month. Also negotiate for any ‘extras’ you like such as upgraded kitchen, landscaped garden with large patio, upgraded carpet, electric garage door etc. We got loads of stuff with our current house. This is my third new build so we really new what we were doing this time.

Thanks for your advice everyone! I do appreciate it, criticisms and all!

Just to throw a spanner in the works we’ve been on our walk today and seen a gorgeous period house. We’d discounted it before as it’s a semi, it was once a big hall now split into 2 flats and the house. It has the wow factor and has been on since last June so maybe wiggle room on the price. I wouldn’t have any problems going there as it has everything we are looking for. Decisions decisions!

I personally do not like new builds one bit. Leasehold and estate charges aren't always expected, boundary disputes occur, small rooms, neighbour noise from thin walls and building defects to name just a few problems.

Wexone
No didn’t mention it in the review. There was just the 4 of us and we were only there one night. I was referring to the 5 bedrooms if they just had a family of 2 parents and 4 children the living area was tiny

DH and BIL are both in trades and both said they'd never buy a new build. BIL said if they can save a little on something like £15 here and there well when you take into account the number of houses and number of little savings it all adds up for a developer, so he thinks they cut corners. I mean most have a 10 year guarantee but I do remember living in a new build as a teenager and there are settling cracks so there will be some work involved. Also how do they last after the 10 years? There's a few new developments near us and some have started to look abit worn as I think people buy them thinking they have no work to do but often the facades need painting and people don't bother.
We have ruled them out as they're all on the outskirts of town and have went with a 1930s style house we should complete after lockdown. I get excited at the thought of decorating it whereas the 1960s one we seen, I just didn't know where to begin as is so not my style

Avoid new builds.

The period one we’ve seen is a big converted hall that’s been split in 2. It’s been restored beautifully and has loads of original features plus a utility and downstairs toilet. It’s on for over £400k though so would need some negotiating if it’s still on the market when we’re ready.

We went somewhere in the middle. Our house is on a ‘new estate’ built 15 years ago. Long enough ago to have the snags sorted. The rooms are big, all double rooms and so many bathrooms! The only work we have needed to do is decoration and new floors. The garden is a medium size and we love it so much here.

We looked at new builds and saw a beautiful 5 bedroom across 5 floors. It was honestly TINY. The en suite bathroom doors didn’t open without hitting the sinks. The kitchen was tiny too. And the garden wasn’t bigger than a postage stamp.

Oops across 3 floors!

Don't buy a new build when it's new!

Wait until the two year warranty period is over, that way the first owners will have sorted out all the inevitable issues left by the developers...

We've just sold our brand new house to buy a period home built late 40s.

New builds:
Small rooms
Walls are rubbish
Gardens are small & overlooked
Build quality is far Inferior than of an old house
You'll spend two years snagging
Walls not square
Rubbish carpets
Plastic plumbing
Waste under the garden is shocking all the rubbish from the builders just dumped.
Rubbish left under the kitchen units
Rubbish choice of fixtures fittings and anything from the normal range will cost you 3 x times usual price
Space for two cars If your lucky
Garage - usually single
Leaks gallore due to rushed plumbing
Install boilers on job lots so you'll get small boiler whether or not two bed or four bed
Living amongst dirty unfinished roads
Silly shapes in rooms just to squeeze in a tiny en suite
Energy efficiency (this isn't that great) our house felt colder than my mums 1944 semi
Settling in / subsidence / rubbish ground built on anything usually the OUTSKIRTS OF TOWNS you may as well live outskirts of anywhere.
Gardens have rubbish drainage you'll be in a bog.

Old house:
Bigger plots
Good gardens
More privacy
Better build quality
Bigger rooms
Far bigger driveways
Usually copper plumbing
Solid walls
Character
Charm
Built on nice roads or lanes or lovely established estates.
Probably cheaper unless you get a period home in a desirable area.

I grew up in a 1944 house and tbh you can't beat an old house. We are buying a beautiful old house 950sq metre plot beautiful character solid built. Going to be cracking on doing it up right away. I was sick of pokey rooms, rubbish walls you could hear when someone was peeing, car parking a joke, garden not private and small, rubbish build quality. I'll never buy new again.

Some may not agree but I'm telling you the truths. Owned two new built homes and both the same. My friends also. Rubbish overall. This has been echo'd by friends and family.

Whatever you decide as long as YOUR HAPPY that's all that matters.

Old. I live in a relatively new build house (15 years or so) and the build quality is shoddy. Cheapest materials used throughout.

Everything MDF and chipboard. The walls are paper thin and you can hear everything that’s going on next door.

I could cry when I think about the 50s built house that we used to live in with proper brick internal walls and real hard wood floorboards. It just felt so much more solid.