Tips for buying a new build?

[Curiosity101]

Myself and DH are considering upgrading our house. It would be our 3rd house purchase but our previous 2 houses have been old and needed completely gutting and renovating from the ground up - full rewires, heating/plumbing you name it. So we are relatively comfortable with the process of buying houses and assessing what needs doing. But I don't think any of our experience helps us much in buying a new build.

So I'd really appreciate any tips on what to ask, what to look out for etc.

The house is part of an Avant development, it's the second one in our area, both are within a mile of eachother and built to similar/same specs. I've looked in Zoopla and one of the houses on the original site is for sale for £75k more than it was purchased for 22 months ago, so whilst it hasn't sold yet it makes me think the houses may well hold their value (which was one of my worries initially of buying a new build).

They also offer a part exchange option which we were going to enquire about to see what benefits that might give us. But I'm assuming if it's anything like part exchanging a car then it'll benefit them more so than us in terms of ££?

Just to add, we have googled Avant and we can see they definitely don't have the best reputation. We're not wedded to the idea of buying one of their houses but on paper it fits our spec so we figured it was worth at least viewing / gathering more information.

Would you be buying off plan or viewing the actual property before purchase?

I wouldn't buy one off plan, or going by the show home.

View the actual house and pay attention to things that are hard to fix such as the quality of the brickwork, drainage in the garden, whether the drive will actually fit a car.

See if there is a Facebook page for the estate that's been there a while, ask to join. It'll give you a really good idea of what you're in for.

@zzzebra It could be either. One plot is partially built, one is finished and ready to be viewed.

Definitely will look out for the things you've mentioned.

I'll check now to see if I can find a Facebook group for the previous development. 👍 Thanks.

Just be aware of dates of completion changing .
We originally tried to go forward with buying a new build last year and it was a shambles .
The company (catalyst) were so uninterested so we had to do all the chasing and then they made us jump through hoops saying we had to do so many things just to get them to reserve the plot for us which included having our house sold and completed on before they’d even take it off the market which meant any buyer of ours would have a massively long completion before exchange which many are not happy to do .
It was supposed to have been ready last December but then changed to this summer and think it’s been put back again till October and that was even with the builders still working through the pandemic!
So we had to pull out and find a different property (non new build) .
I just think new builds are only really useful for first time buyers as there are just so many pitfalls if you have to sell your house too as part of a chain unless of course the house is already built or you’re happy to rent somewhere in the meantime (we were not as moving is stressful enough without doing it twice in 6 months !).
Good luck .