To hate new builds?

[Sello]

This will likely be controversial, but my brother and his partner moved into a new build and now my parents are also moving into one.

I find there is something soulless about them.

The one my parents are moving into is in the process of being built and so they’ve put an offer in and been accepted, even though they’ve never seen it, only the plans.

Our house is Victorian and although it does have some problems with damp and insulation, I loved the character as soon as we walked in.
My in laws house is around 500 years old, it’s an old farmhouse and it has so much charm and character.

I know it’s each to their own, but I just feel like they’re uninviting, like Lego houses and like a hotel or something.

I have a little Georgian terrace and I love it. New builds are so soulless and they often turn out to have significant problems. My tiny house is warm and pretty - it has no unexpected disadvantages, though it's not very convenient.

Ridiculous. There is no shortage of period properties in the uk.

I hate new builds…they are wide to look big but shallow so they are actually tiny. They barely have a garden and the majority have their y built into the house so you lose more space.

but the worst thing for me, is something that I’ve heard multiple people complain about, and have witnessed it at my sisters, is the garden!!! They regularly leave their garbage, rubble and actual rubbish, and then lay the grass on top of it. It cost my sister a fortune to replace hers. google it…it’s a thing

Where I live there is. A house goes on the market and is sold in a week.

and I can’t find a 4 bed for love nor money within a mile of my house (except for a plot on the new builds that are getting thrown up behind me)

Our house was built in the 20s and it has a really small garden so not all older properties have bigger gardens

Having said that, we havent so far found any significant problems, its not cold, damp or drafty and things dont need fixing as such unless they are things we decide to change

How can there not be a shortage of period properties? There was literally a few smaller population when they were built.

A great deal of post war housing stock isn't the prettiest. I actually think the higher end new build estates from the last decade or so are a considerable improvement on a lot of the mid-century stuff visually.

Saying that all new builds are soulless or deceptively tiny or anything else is just stupid. Lazy generalising.

Ours has a small management charge for cutting grass/maintaining landscaping on the shared grounds. Nothing else. Road is adopted, pipes and wayleaves either already are or will be (phase two still ongoing down the hill), even the trees are being adopted by council. Scotland too, so no leasehold stuff

I hate new builds…they are wide to look big but shallow so they are actually tiny. They barely have a garden and the majority have their y built into the house so you lose more space

Mine is almost 2000 sq ft, has 5 bedrooms (6 if you could the downstairs playroom) and has a decent (admittedly not massive, but a decent size) garden. I wouldn't call that tiny. There are loads of massive new builds around. You are generalising based on your limited knowledge and experience. There is a wide range of new builds house sizes and types.

This thread is bonkers! People can say they prefer period builds - but some don’t even seek to know what they mean by new build!

anything built in the last thirty years? Do they mean they don’t like estates? I live in a 25 year old house with a beautiful, large, mature garden. Is this a new build? Is a an architectural masterpiece hated because it has been built in the last twenty years?

people are making ridiculous sweeping statements

We had this problem when looking for a house, older 4 beds are rarer, and tend to be extended semis (we wanted detached, no one should have to live that close to us). In the end we did compromise massively with a 3 bed with garage conversion as a 4th bedroom.

A teeny tiny new build.

@StatisticallyChallenged yes exactly the same scenario as us. That whole English leasehold business confuses me.

You don’t have to like them. They don’t appeal to me visually and I dislike the size and layouts but I can definitely understand the security of having a new house with a new roof, new appliances, new electrics, new heating system etc. I wouldn’t say I’d never get one

I also think some folks are making some sweeping generalisations. I’ve seen some bad older properties with terrible lay outs, or very poorly maintained and in a bad way and I’ve seen some beautiful new builds (on the inside anyway) done to a very high spec.

but I think folks are refering to the ubiquitous new build estates cropping up all over the place where properties are crammed in together and all look very similar. Because of the sheer amount of them all looking the same in small spaces it can be off putting to a lot of people, although others like it.

I think folks are refering to them rather than the small developments of tastefully done , well and sympathetically built houses with no more than a couple being built on the whole plot.

on balance for me personally I find myself gravitating towards period properties, but I have seen sone lovely new builds. And I think if you’ve an eye for interior design you can do something good even with the large estate types.

My lovely friends built their own house approx 3 years ago. it is about as far from soulless as you could get, because it was built to their own specifications, but it is still a new build! I am buying a "soulless" new build because I dont have a lot of money but it will be anything but soulless inside. I lived in an older property with my exH, but it was pretty bloody soulless because there was no love in the louse. .

My ex was weird about noise from neighbours so we had to find a detached house. The only way to get good sized bedrooms and a proper dining kitchen within our budget in this area was a new build. So we went with that. It really was a beautiful house. I wish I’d been able to afford to keep it after we split.

In all honestly, it was more suitably spacious than the Edwardian terrace I live in now. This house is a bit of a tardis, and benefits from a side return extension that creates a lovely big kitchen (but at the expense of creating an internal public room). But the bedrooms include a box room.

My new build had 5 large double bedrooms and a separate study. Two public rooms. A huge dining kitchen. Utility. Downstairs loo. Two bathrooms and an en-suite. Good sized garden. Huge double garbage. Driveway. And was worth much less than this house is. It’s got fewer rooms (I use a bedroom as a WFH office), no garden (well yard and front garden), crap on street parking…. But it’s period and has features. And it is spacious with high ceilings.

The high ceilings is probably the difference that makes the most difference to me.

I did decide, while looking to buy nearly new builds (rather than buying from the developer) that I am not a ‘new build person’. I met a lot of people who clearly only ever consider buying off plan new builds. They went on and on about the advantages of their plot and the extras they’d paid for.

i remember saying to my ex that they aren’t extras any more; it’s just the house. It’s a totally different mindset - all houses have different decoration and choices. A future buyer isn’t impressed that you chose your tiles from the developer’s premium range or asked for additional tiling. They don’t care what the standard spec was for off plan buying. It’s not relevant.

I get what you mean but if you look at the average UK income X 2 and the kind of home that will get that you, while still having money to live with and enjoy, you’re looking at a specific type of new build and they aren’t spacious!

That's a story I've heard more than once about ' old asylum ' land.
Where was that , if I may ask ?

The new build I had was on a huge development. My ex and I identified the one bit of it we thought was liveable and bought a second hand new build there. It was the part that had been ‘premium’ in design. We bought one of the cheaper smaller house types on that but if the huge development - its was a big house regardless!

The longer a house has been standing the more changes you find have been made to it by previous residents.

sometimes people selling on recent new builds (I learned that there are people who upgrade their new build house in a similar manner to their PCP car) seem to think anyone cares about the options they had a buying stage. Sometimes they imagine that having decorated at all is somehow remarkable. But I suspect it’s because those people haven’t looked at the utterly idiosyncratic world of second (third, fifteenth) hand house buying. If they had they’d realise no one cares that they paid £250 for the outside tap. 😆

YANBU I don't like them either. I live in a house that's old and full of character which I loved from the moment I saw it. Although there are times, especially in winter, I've thought it would be so nice to live in a warm house with no draughts, no fires to clean out and clean lines, a utility room and doors and cream carpets etc but where's the fun in that?! I'll take my old house any day.
I do get that not everyone has a choice though and some people just aren't very attached to where they live. Years ago I remember being on the council waiting list (I don't know how social housing works these days) for a house/flat and I don't think you had much choice and were actively encouraged to take whatever was first offered to you or you'd be bumped down the list. Anyway it was a flat and it was nice enough but it wasn't where I'd choose to live.

Some of the space in the extended 4 beds was amazing, but ds is very noisy (ASD), we are not fun to live near, let alone the other side of an adjoining wall.

The 40's - 60's hodge podge of my local area isn't great though, narrow roads, limited parking and no real green spaces, which would be a lot better on a new build estate (and was in my 2000 estate) but I absolutely love my house so I put up with it. Probably less pot holes on a new estate too (once roads finished, I know it can be a nightmare till then)

I used to feel like you. Lived in a 1920’s house and loved the “character” initially. It was often freezing though and required ongoing maintenance.

Moved to a new build last year (bought off plan) and LOVE it. When the gas and electricity bills come through every month, I am still genuinely shocked by how low they are (even since price rise). The heating hardly came on upstairs throughout winter, it seems like a “self heating” house.

We’d picked out everything we wanted months before, in terms of kitchen, flooring, tiles etc and it was really exciting to walk in and see it when completed. Everything to a high spec, and all new appliances energy efficient.

Decorating has been great as we were starting with a blank canvas - and the painting easy as the walls are all smooth.

There were a couple of snags - nothing very exciting - and they were all sorted out as soon as we reported them.

The same with the garden, we have been able to plan it all out from the beginning and start planting and I am really looking forward to watching it develop more.

We also have a good size garden and the house itself is pretty big, with high ceilings, a very large hallway and lots of light.

Did I saw how warm it is? 😁

I do get that not everyone has a choice though and some people just aren't very attached to where they live

I'm extremely attached to my house, it's my sanctuary. My nice, warm, cheap to heat sanctuary.

So many posters saying new builds are small! Well yes, the small ones are, same as small older houses are small!! My new build is large, high ceilings, great open plan spaces. Each to their own. Strange thread for what purpose??