To ask which new build houses you would avoid

[bridgetreilly]

Looking for a house and there are several new build developments we’re interested in, but I’m finding it hard to get honest reviews. Are there builders with truly awful reputations that I shouldn’t even bother looking at?

And, conversely, has anyone got experience of a good quality new home that you love?

Avoid anything by Tayfield Homes. They set up a new company for each development so are known by different names. I would go so far as to say the managing director is a sociopath, the way he delayed, lied to and gaslighted residents on our development.

Looks like Harlequin Homes is his latest venture, don't touch them with a barge pole.

We are Keepmoat at the houses are just a bit… meh. Like not much thought has gone into them, they’ve just thrown them up. We found lots of cracks and crappy plastering when we moved in, floor laid a bit wonky, things like that.

There’s a Berkeley Homes development on the next road from me, and I only hear good things about it from people who live there. It feels very ‘high end’ walking about there, they put in lovely kids playgrounds and fountains and ponds and stuff as part of the development.

My son has been in a persimmon house from new for 7 years, not one problem at all. In fact 2 lots of his friends live on the same estate and as far as I know, no problems too.

One i would consider are Crest Nicholson. No direct experience but I've looked round some and they look beautiful and age well, lots of thought into the positioning of the houses etc.

@MrsSprogett

Not builders but I would find out about the land it's built on before I consider one. Near us they are building on everything, locals avoid them because they know the history

A development of nearly 100 flats and 20-odd houses has been built not far from me. The site was under several feet of water for the best part of a week 20 years ago, when a large part of the town was flooded.

I certainly wouldn't buy one of those.

And everyone I know who's bought a new-build has had no end of problems. I think the only new-build I'd buy was one my builder BIL built, because I know that he does everything to an incredibly high standard.

Quality is what is being mentioned but what about the neighbourhood? It’s not established at all. When looking for a home though neighbours can move at any time you can at least visit and get a feel as to what it’s like at the time of buying. Okay the lovely couple next door may move and you could get awful neighbours just like awful neighbours can move and you get lovely neighbours. But you get a snapshot. Also crime stats won’t mean a thing as it’s brand new.

I just don’t like the look of estates they can look quite uniform. The road I live in is a mixture of Edwardian and 1920’s houses.

The Bellway ones near us are awful. 2 friends have bought them on 2 different schemes and they build quality is dreadful. One has a permanent soggy back garden due to insufficient drainage and this is now causing damp on the property and the others can't plug things in at night as the noise amplifies up the wall and wakes the kids!

Ours is. Berkeley and I don’t recognise the tales of tiny gardens and garages. We have a good sized back garden and reasonable front garden. The garage is used for DH’s tools and storage, but also houses a car every day. It will fit a small SUV.

The windows are large in every room, except the cloakroom and the room sizes are generous. We have a kitchen/diner, that has an extra seating area and another living room.

How often do people talk about where to park when they live in Edwardian or Victorian houses. They don’t have drives and garages in general. How often do people complain about how cold their older style house is- little insulation and draughts. Thirties houses with rounded bay windows all look the same and they usually have two bedrooms and a box room.

In the end, people buy what suits their budget and style. It’s not necessary to be unpleasant about other choices.

There is a new housing development not far from me of 600 new homes. It is being built by Cala and a two bed will set you back £365k which is about £65k over an older 2 bed in the same area. The builds look ok if you want to live amongst 600 houses that pretty much are all identical to each other. The rooms are small even though they are advertised they will fit a king size bed and they will if you only have a small waldrobe and not much else. But the main draw back is they are built on a flood plane. The development even contains a pumping station for this but with that many houses I don’t see it coping and one big flood will mean the homes won’t be insurable. When it was fields it flooded every winter so it will only be worse now it has been concreted over.

This is the land that they are building on.

@Proudboomer

This is the land that they are building on.

Yeah, some new ones being built near my work on flood plains. Seems a really stupid idea to me!

Our flat was built by David Wilson in 2006. We drilled to put a curtain pole in the usual place 😆 and hit a plastic heating pipe going diagonally through the wall. Black water all over the new telly.