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.

Not the massive million pound plus new houses folks are posting about they own.

the one I owned was definitely not in the massive million pound category. Far from it. You’d have struggled to find anything on the estate (including some really enormous houses - far bigger than the one I had) for more than about £500k. I had previously looked at smaller new builds in the around £250k previously and they really weren’t horribly small. Not as spacious as you got for £350k, but actually a bit bigger than an Edwardian semi I bought for £290k (but much more centrally located than the new builds).

yes there were also smaller, cheaper houses. But they weren’t radically smaller than any of the comparably priced older stock round here either. If you only have £150k as a budget, you aren’t buying a spacious house whenever it was built.

And all of the new builds were on a large estate.

I didn’t buy it new though. Or look at buying from the developer.

I know what you mean, they do all sort of look the same and majorly lack character. My Mum bought one a couple of years ago and it’s one of the weird ones where the living room is upstairs, I can’t wrap my head around that set up personally and I’d get sick of going up and down stairs to make drinks!

The benefit is they tend not to have structural issues and they’re well insulated.

I agree this thread is elitist.

I imagine someone sitting in their chocolate box cottage sipping tea sneering at the poor folk in their little cardboard houses.

I remember a friends mum dropping me home in the nineties and exclaiming do all the houses look the same? How dreadful! And satellite dishes - how awful.

why do people feel the need to put down others to make themselves feel better? There are some amazing new builds out there and some pretty dreadful older homes

stop being such snobs.

I bought a NB and lived here happily for 5 years. Hardly any maintenance issues and as a single mum with a busy job it's peace of mind.

It's well insulated in a small development and a cul de sac. I feel really blessed.

I really couldn't be arsed having a period property right now in my life.

This idea that old houses are all unique is utter nonsense, you realise?

Just walk to any street in a city with older terraces and guess what? They started out (and often still are) completely identical both inside and out. The idea of building a house to the same spec as the one next door is hardly new.

Do you actually hear yourself? Implying people in new houses just aren't very attached to where they live, how could they be, in their souless boxes?

I'm glad your house has character, as you clearly have none yourself. BTW, there's a lot of fun in living in a warm, clean house with straight lines that doesn't cost a fortune to attempt (and generally fail) to keep up to standard.

Heavens - have people never seen rows and rows of identical terrace housing. Do they really believe older houses are individually unique😂😂😂. Yes they will have been added to Over the years - the out houses moved inside - box rooms lost to inside bathrooms.

I think some people are comparing large new build estates with castles😂😂😂

@Squillerman ours had the upstairs sitting room. When DCs were still at home they used the small ground floor space when their friends came round. DH and I could then get some peace upstairs.

We have since extended on the ground floor. Upstairs sitting room was used as lovely large bedroom for DS but has now been split in two to give us a huge dressing room and office.

This has been our first brand new home. We have been in it for 16 years. I love the flexibility of the space. Stud partitions mean doorways can be added or changed. Rooms can be split or joined up. Competent DIYer jobs, not needing to get a builder in.

You have to pick and choose. This wasn't the most expensive house on the development but we felt it had the best layout for us. The site agent warned us off one of the more expensive houses as she said she had one herself and said the layout just didn't work despite being bigger on paper.

Every house was once a new build

My house was originally a character house, it is a barn conversion and used to have exposed sandstone wall sections and beams etc, random door/window sizes. However we much prefer the new build style and found the features in the character house problematic (damp coming through sand stone feature walls, beams flaking bits everywhere, costs a fortune to replace any windows/doors due to irregular size meaning you have to get them custom made).
We have now had it done up and it basically looks like a new build style-wise, much prefer it, there is something calming about it and I felt there was too much going on before.

Everyone is different I suppose.

Also, I really like the fact that we live on a fairly new development that has lots of covenants in place.

So I know that there won’t be big extensions that overlook neighbours, or campervans or broken down cars left on the street.

All houses have big garages and parking so no parking issues, and and the attached houses have really solid thick walls so neighbours can’t hear each other at all and being overlooked is kept to a minimum. There are safe shared spaces for children, parks and community gardens.

Some people sneer at “living somewhere with so many rules”. I’ve lived in character houses where there were planning permission disputes on the street, parking issues, people dumping spare “project cars” outside.

We choose to buy this house knowing we wouldn’t be dealing with any of that. The estate fees mean the area is well maintained and includes gardeners who plant and maintain the front garden areas as well as the communal areas. There are benefits to the fees that others complain about and I’m happy to pay them.

Not every new build house is in a Barret/Wimpy development, although I’ve been in some that are lovely and good areas for families.

Some of the posts on here are pure snobbery, and I wish them all the best with their energy bills in future 😊

Some of the posts on here are pure snobbery, and I wish them all the best with their energy bills in future 😊

Yep. And my new build isn't a multi-million-pound mansion, it's a one-bedroom flat. But I love it.

But this, apart from the stairs, describes my Victorian terrace.
Small rooms, tiny garden, can hear the neighbours.

"I imagine someone sitting in their chocolate box cottage sipping tea sneering at the poor folk in their little cardboard houses".

You're spot on there. My friend used to live in a very old village with a lot of old character homes plus a new build estate. One day she got chatting to one of the locals in the village pub who referred to the new builds as slums. Yes really! She moved soon after that. It's perfectly fine to have a preference for old character properties but to look down your nose at other people's homes is about as tacky and classless as you can get.

It's such a brainless position to feel superior to people in new builds. You need them to live in their 'boxes' so that you can enjoy your oh so important period features. There isn't an unending supply of these, you might have noticed.

What other option is there? Will you turn your lovely Victorian home into tenements so that no one should ever suffer the indignity of living in a 'lego house'? I doubt it.

Being snide about people doing what they have to do to keep society housed is the behaviour of a twat.

To those in new builds, we don't all sneer at your homes, some of us can see that both new and old homes can be just as lovely.🙂

Not every new build house is in a Barret/Wimpy development, although I’ve been in some that are lovely and good areas for families.

The vast majority are though. Bespoke new builds can be lovely (friends of mine live in one) but the estate around here that's being built has them jammed in as tight as possible with the majority of the flats being in blocks that wouldn't look out of place in Stalin's Russia.

That's fascinating to me as it's the other way around here! The new build estate is the 'fancy' area, a big estate in the middle of a very poor town. The houses outside of the estate usually go for around 100k-150k, the cheapest house on the estate is around 250k. The estate residents very much see themselves as a cut above and talk on the residents forum about getting a gate to become a gated community and keep the riff raff out. The people in the surrounding areas are pretty snippy about estate residents thinking they're better than everyone else (they do think that tbf). Lots of conflict over which school all of the kids should go to, some feeling that the estate school should be for estate kids only while non estate folk believe it should be open to all fairly.

I love my new build and don't think I'd ever consider living in a non new-build. So much easier to go through the process of buying, a warranty, people on hand to fix bits and bobs quickly. The sound proofing is brilliant, we're in a semi and never hear a peep from the neighbours and vice versa, the garden is a decent size and the rooms are a good size too (ours is three storey with the top floor being an entire master suite).

At least you can move in when you want and not be messed around by petty sellers!

The people at the top of our chain were buying a new build, it was an absolute nightmare and all the delays were down to that property.

Some new builds are shite, why anyone would buy some of them I've no idea, especially the ones from companies that have so many bad reviews.

People buying the houses deserve houses that are safe and well built, no one should have to employ a professional snagger to deal with the potentially hundreds of snags. They need to be much more upfront about the "extras" (that are actually pretty basic) and how much they will cost. Building control needs to be a lot stricter, none of this self regulation, far too many short cuts being taken because they can get away with it. Properties shouldn't be allowed to be built on flood plains or so close to a main dual carriageway or motorway. There is nothing wrong on the whole with new builds, there is plenty wrong with the new build industry.

@NalashixTerashkova - If the prices were different then I’d think you lived near me! (All of the prices in our area of the country are ridiculously expensive at the moment but much more on the new development, which also attracts a lot of second home owners who push prices up further)

There is some bad feeling in the local town and it’s seen as a ‘snobby’ area by some. Unfortunately some of the residents committee here would probably like a gated community themselves, as they talk of “outsiders” coming in to use facilities 🙈 It’s ridiculous and it is one thing I don’t like.

I love my new build. It has three decent sized bedrooms, garage, dh has boarded the loft out for storage and bills are low because it's well insulated. We have reasonable sized front and back gardens as well. We've put our stamp on it inside and it's certainly not soulless. We're getting older and don't have any worries about leaking roof, new boiler, draughts, re wiring or new doors and windows. We haven't had any snags either.

Each to their own.

I have lived in new builds for the last 25 years and whilst I might consider a house that had been lived in I would not consider and older house as I don't want all the work that comes with them.

My current house was the show house so top of the range on all the fixtures and fittings, fully landscaped gardens, designer décor, big rooms, brand new white goods. Love it.

We all have different tastes.

I think there are some vile, box shaped new builds, but there are also those where some thought has gone into the design. We have some locally which nod at 1930s style. Very nice. But it’s only the top end ones that feel like you’re not on top of each other, and without exception the garden is a garden in name only, and completely overlooking each other. I wouldn’t feel I could entertain outside or sunbathe etc whilst being on display to the adjoining houses. The parking is also appalling, greedy developers squeezing as many houses as they can without building in sufficient space for today’s car ownership.

in a 1930s extended semi here and it feels very private, and I can breathe!

Ours doesn't seem to attract any second home owners so I reckon we're not nearby, but you never know! Yeah, the residents can be awful. I've met some lovely friends here but some are incredibly snobby and it's embarrassing to be associated with them. I mean, a gated community! We're a big housing estate in a poor Northern town, not a fancy Beverley Hills community lol. Some can be really up themselves. Lots of talk about how people are coming to use 'our' park and 'our' pond even though plenty of our residents go to parks and ponds outside of the estate!

I think there is many many times in life when a new build is the better choice. Irrelevant of taste. An example would be where people don’t have the time, money or know how to maintain a period property,

Period properties are often an expensive luxury, they cost to maintain, to run, to heat, there is no way round that, and unless you can afford it, to heat it, to maintain it, and that’s in both time and money as well as know how, you probably shouldn’t be going there. The new build in this instance is often the more practical budget savvy choice.

but not everyone wants practical and budget savvy. Some people are happy to do or pay for the maintenance, they can afford the costs to heat it, it’s a luxury they can afford. Other folks don’t want to do that or can’t. So for them a new build is a good answer, but of course many of them also have a downside, room size, plot size, large estates etc as long as each is happy with their choice, that’s all that matters.

all properties usually have a compromise, 🤷‍♀️