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?

@WombatChocolate not as many as you think, only 260,000ish have been bought with HTB between 2013-2019, roughly 200,000 houses have been built a year in that time period (very roughly, 2013 was the lowest at 125,000ish)

We live on a new build estate and bought with Barratt Homes. There were various issues with snagging initially but they sorted everything and overall not too bad. Taylor Wimpey are also quite reasonable based on family members experiences. We do have a builder here called Bovis homes who lots of people seem to have had issues with so I definitely wouldn't use them.

(Though there's also shared ownership which I think is another 200,000ish)

@Spanielsarepainless

A new barracks-block of a development I used to drive past had a sheet hanging over the twee balcony with 'DON'T BUY BOVIS' painted on it...

There was a car parked outside the Bovis sales office with a similar note in the window by us for a while too 🙊

We went to look at a newly built Bloor home. Luckily I was downstairs as my husband was upstairs or we might not have noticed the ceiling moving up and down with approximately 10 cm when he walked above. I thought the lamp would fall down! The floors upstairs did feel very soft.

I have a Taylor Wimpey home and I am really happy with it, I think you are better off enquiring about the specific sites rather than builder because it all depends how they are run too.
Some have Facebook pages for the development That the new residents create so you can join them and ask questions from home owners already living there to see how they are.
I would definitely buy a newbuild again it's absolutely lovely walking into a brand new home that you know you don't have to do any work on.

Always amazed that people have so many problems when buying a new build. I work in this sector and all our work is to a very high standard. If any trade does make a error some where along the way it is picked up very quickly and rectified Asap. Everything has to be signed off and a house is not signed off if all checks are not done.

It’s unfair to say all new builds are rubbish - it simply isn’t true.
It does seem to differ from development to development and I’d recommend you do your homework before signing up. Things like ground rents, don’t put stuff in attics etc should be picked up. Fore you decided.

I lived in a Taylor Wimpy house and was pretty decent. The build quality of Barrett Homes where I used to live was very poor but a friend who has one says hers is excellent.

I’m currently in what was a new build when we bought, built by a a local builder. So many snags you wouldn’t believe it, poor electrics and plumbing, terrible customer care.

I wouldn’t touch Persimmon with a barge pole.
Bovis have been amazing for us. Makes me laugh when people say they wouldnt touch a new build due to snagging etc. Do they realise the problems that older houses have?! Love a blank canvas too. Anyway. Bovis have been great. Big houses, no box rooms, big gardens, 2 years guarantee on everything! So even if you have a personally caused plumbing problem, oven breaks (nothing to do with bovis technically) etc etc, they will fix it.
Want to buy new forever! Most houses round here with problems are 70’s builds.. please realise they did the same things then!

Ours is Cala and seems pretty good - we do have some snags which we're waiting to be dealt with (bloody lockdown here has meant they were only allowed access for emergencies, can't blame them for that!) but nothing serious. Mainly small paintwork issues, a pair of totally mismatched internal doors, some scratched glass and a leaking shower (which they fixed, but now need to fix the wall/skirting damage!)...

I have a total of 53 items on my list, which sounds a lot but it's a fairly large 5 bedroom house and these are things I've noticed over 8 months and some are fairly minor. Biggest issue is the shitty topsoil and turf actually.

However, it's warm, well insulated, good soundproofing, big rooms, every house has at least a 2 car driveway plus garage so parking doesn't seem to be causing an issue so far.

Oh and we paid £20k less than an ex council property here and the house has +30k in two years. The normal ‘old house’ roads probably 50% have drives and you can park on some roads. We have a double driveway and a double garage. Basically - it entirely depends on the house and the road!! New development or old house.. I could live on one of the most expensive roads in the area, 900k for a terraced house with no parking on a tiny, narrow road, costs a bomb to heat and the roof needs replacing... no double glazing.. rising damp and an outside loo...but the 300k less, huge and airy new build with all snagging and repairs is the bad choice?!

I wouldn’t touch anything built by a large/national developer. Small to medium local developers are generally much better. The larger the company the more they rely on sub-contractors who they pay as little as possible. Inevitably leading to stuff like this www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/persimmon-homes-fire-barriers-safety-risk-report-a9250411.html

@APurpleSquirrel

I really don't understand this aversion to new builds? Yes some have problems, but so do many older houses. & tbh ALL houses at one point were new builds. There are advantages to new builds - you can get good deals/discounts on the price; extras thrown in for the sale; good internal layouts; decent heating & modern conveniences. We're in a Redrow house, bought new 9 years ago. It's a smallish estate of 150 homes or so. Every house has either a drive or allocated parking. Most houses have garages. All have gardens. They may not be huge; but they are fine. We had a few snags at the start, but all sorted within a few months. Houses on our estate sell quickly, but most houses haven't been sold since they were first moved into. We were able to haggle with the builders over the sale price & got a big discount because we asked & that enabled us to buy a much nicer, larger house than we could have afforded on the open market. One of my bugbears though is the garden in that this estate was built on a brownfield site (ex plant nursery) & there is a lot of rubble etc but if it was built on a greenfield site local people would complain about it concreting over green fields etc! You can't say new housing would only go on brownfield sites, then complain about the site. Some people seem to romanticise older houses yet seem to ignore the bad points of them. Many don't have allocated parking/drives so you have to play car musical chairs everyday - how many threads are started due to parking? Victorian Terraces etc are identical houses, all packed together. I grew up in a 1930s house where there were at least 6 streets of exactly the same house, one after the other. Buying an older house means you don't know about what's wrong with it; how much has been done to it (or not) over the years. Layouts are often not to modern living standards & require additional work to make them more comfortable. & you may find that all 'character' has been ripped out. A friend has a Victorian terrace - she didn't want a 'featureless' new build - instead she has an open chimney which means her house is usually freezing & costs ££ to heat. They moved into their house the same year we did & are still renovating it. They have to go through their neighbours garden to get their bins out etc. They've had problems with black mould, issues over parking & having to add an extension as soon as they moved in to replace the kitchen. The list goes on. New builds have their problems; but so do all houses. Visit the properties; do your homework; ask around etc but ultimately choose a house you like & can afford.

Well said!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

We've lived in houses of many ages - 17th/18th Century cottage, Victorian Manse, Edwardian detached 1930's, 1970's Semi and two new builds.
The only properties that hasn't cost us any money are the new-builds. Currently we are in an energy efficient large new build with big gardens on a very small development, large driveway and some great design features (I say that as so many new-builds are criticised for not having those features).
Every other older 'character filled' property we have owned cost a fortune to heat, a ton of money to restore and each problem seemed to take a bucket of money to resolve.
Nothing will get me back into an older property. I had enough of beams, panelling, deep skirtings, stained glass and feature fireplaces, good to look at as they are. I like my big glass walls, energy efficient insulation and heating, garages big enough for 21 Century cars and repair free living. I like my low bills.
Choose your builder wisely. Get one with a long house builder guarantee for 'snags' to be resolved - we actually had none over the 2 Years we could call them back) with the 10 year warranty on top. Choose a builder with a good reputation - Charles Church, Spitfire, Crest Nicholson.

Above all choose the house that suits your needs and is in the right location.

@JaniceBattersby

I work as a regional journalist and we just have a constant stream of people coming to us with horrific problems on all kinds of new build estates. Awful build quality, walls you can’t hang a picture on, shonky fixtures, mud-covered roads because of the ongoing building, ridiculous ground rent schemes and huge ongoing costs for estate management, tiny gardens, garages that don’t fit a car in, streets that you can’t park on because they’re too narrow, complete absence of pavements.. Some of the timber-framed homes are only built to last 50 years!

I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole. You’re much better buying something built pre-1990 ish.

My new build is fantastic! Can most definitely hand a picture on the wall The build quality is fab! No ground rent or service charge and a huge driveway, plenty of room for car. It's a beautiful home and not even high end! Only a 2 bed

@Checkingout811

DH owns a building firm and I used to work for a well known developer.

AVOID-
Persimmon
Bellway
Taylor Wimpey
Strata
Harron Homes
Jones Homes

Very cheap materials and I know for a fact that 3 of these don’t check the tradespersons are qualified. Lots of cover ups and the houses are built to a very low standard. Just because they provide NHBC warranty does NOT mean your house is well built.

Miller & David Wilson are probably your best bet.

My Bellway home is extremely well built!

Semi detached and can never hear a peep from next door!

We personally didn't have a single snag. Stop defaming companies

@Tambora

Three-story townhouses crammed onto land the size of a postage stamp.

Endless maze-like roads and awkward driveways with almost no garden.

Insufficient parking, bearing in mind that most families have at least 2 cars and everyone uses their garage for storage instead of its intended purpose.

Rrrright because Victorian homes were awash with parking for family SUVs

I have to say the parking issues people report on 'all' newbuilds is just absolute rubbish like PP says you have parking issues with many other older houses.
Every house on my estate has at the very least 2 spaces on their drives even the smallest houses.
Which is much more sufficient than many older estates.

@LarsErickssong

I think it really depends on the area manager so it's hard to tar them all with the same brush, however I would never touch one and no I'm not jealous as a posted suggested up thread...

I know someone who works for Bellway in North Yorkshire who says even though he would never buy one they are relatively good quality but when he worked on a Bellway site further south with a different area manager they were absolutely shocking.

A lot of the ones in my area are being built on flood planes and areas of moss which is the natural run off for the towns water so I am really concerned about drainage in years to come.

Where in North Yorkshire may I ask pls? I'm in a very new Bellway home in North Yorkshire

ALL houses at one point were new builds
Exactly - and had the features attractive to the households at that time and with the 'energy' efficiency of that age.

I've had a Bloor and it's been great.

My best friend has had soooo many issues with her Taylor Wimpey, and they have been total shits about rectifying. Leaking roof, damp throughout house, mould behind kitchen cabinets, wonky floors...

I'm just about to buy a Davidson's and hoping it will be ok 🤞🏻 As lots of people have said though, a lot of the time it comes down to the site manager and regional manager.

We lived in a Springfield home for about 18 months. It was ok, no significant issues but decided to buy a Victorian house after a year or so as it felt 'flimsy' and noisy.

Ironically the 150 year old house was cheaper!

I highly recommend Redrow. Quality is perfect- built with character, lots of parking and big gardens. We are in a semi detached and never, ever hear a thing through the walls.

Three-story townhouses crammed onto land the size of a postage stamp.

Endless maze-like roads and awkward driveways with almost no garden.

Insufficient parking, bearing in mind that most families have at least 2 cars

That sounds like the atypical rows of Victorian terraced housing so common in many English towns. Not that different to the 'vertical terraces' of flat blocks in so many cities.

We bought a 6 year old house 9 years ago now and have had very few problems, I suppose all the snags were fixed before we moved in. Bathrooms were low quality though, so we replaced them, and did a garage conversion with new kitchen.

Miller homes.