Has anyone moved from character property to new build?

[buckyou]

We live in a lovely but quirky 4 bed barn conversion with a big garden, stables and land at the moment.

We have a very big mortgage, we don't really like the village (think very small, old community, no shop, school, pub or park). Maintenance of the land etc. Is bloody hard work, always jobs to do.

Also we have 2 young children and are thinking about private school which will be unattainable at the moment.

Would we regret moving to a new build? It just feels like it would be very easy. And we could afford a lovely big, family home and have some left over.

Or would it be better to 'down size' to an older property?

I always thought I wanted a country cottage but not so sure now I have kids!! I just want 'easy'.

I've just moved from a an interwar 1920s/30s house with a huge garden to a new build detached. Completely different to you as we were not downsizing/ moving from village so i can only comment on build quality.

We have an older 11-15 year old Persimmon home and the build quality is shit!!!! Its a double fronted house so main rooms on either side and very wide hall/landing in middle. we joked about the east and west wing when we first moved.

Getting used to a new build is hard. If my DH is weeing downstairs loo, i can hear him in the master bedroom like he's a foot away from me even though im upstairs and diagonal with several walls to break the sound and about 20 ft away.

the walls are like cardboard as they are all plasterboard walls rather than brick internal walls that we'd been so used to.

another problem we've had is poor installed bathrooms which we've had to address recently. we've had problems with two of the shower rooms and our plumber said he suspected that one causing the main problems was not used due to leaks and they used one of the others. oh god, the leaks down stairs... a good proportion of the ceiling below is stained from leakage.

from my very narrow experience, all i can say is that the low maintenance dream of a newbuilld has gone!!!

If you don’t like where you are, move. Life is too short to live someplace you don’t love.

However it doesn’t have to be either That or a new build, there is in between. I’d go see a few different properties and decide.

I moved from a new build to a beautiful old cottage, to a Victorian house, to a new build, and now into a 400 year old listed building, and the cottage and this are by far my favourites. However in terms of time, money, ease of maintenance then yes the Victorian and the new builds were much easier.

I think what id struggle with now if I went back to a newer house, are neighbours in close promity, being over looked or over heard.

OP - we are having exactly the same dilemma. Sold our 1930s property with it's great soundproofing and are currently renting a 1970s poorly built house where you can hear every sound. We saw a 13yr old house at the weekend, massive house, big rooms, garden not too bad for a newer home. We were jumping upstairs to see how much the sound travelled and it seemed reasonably solid. In many respects its a no-brainer but it screams "executive home" and I am struggling to get my head around it as my heart would prefer a character property. The problem is that the character properties around here are smaller and all need a lot of work, plus they don't come onto the market very often.