If you bought a new build

[Sunsetsupernova]

What would you advise looking for in a plot? And what questions should we be asking the developer?

We have a meeting this weekend with the sales office of a development which we absolutely love. We saw another development last year by the same builder and loved the houses but the location wasn’t quite right and now they have a development coming up in a much better location for us. It’s very early stages, there’s currently only a couple of houses built and they have no windows or anything like that.

I believe she said the meeting is to look over the plans and decide whether we want to have first refusal when they come to be released for reservation. I may have got that a bit wrong having never bought a new build before!

So what should we be asking about and what should we be looking for in our preferred plot? The only thing I can really think of is a big sunny garden as we have that currently and it’s very important to us. Someone also said being a bit further into the development so there’s not lots of cars going past your window. I believe there will be about 70 houses made up of 3,4 and 5 beds. We’ll be looking for a 3 bed.

Thanks in advance!

Do not get a corner plot if you have dogs!
I have a detached corner plot, my neighbours drive past, or walk past with dogs & my 3 furies go nuts!! Every. Day! I've lived here for 8 yrs & quite enjoy it, no major issues at all.

Check that any garage is big enough to put in a large SUV and be able to get out of the car without losing 2 stone in weight 😂
Same with a driveway check that it’s actually big enough for your car and not a Lego toy car
Ask where the bins are kept and why

When you look at the bedroom plans and floor plans make sure you can actually fit a standard size double bed and not a small double bed

Make sure the the doorway entrance hall area will be easy enough to get in furniture
I watched a tv programme a few years ago about new builds where you can’t get furniture in the front door and they had to take out windows to get in furniture

As mentioned by a pp Check the position of any manholes in the gardens.

Get EVERYTHING the salesperson says in writing. Everything! Literally everything 😂 If you have any questions don't let them fob you off with sales patter.

Every new build development now has "affordable houses" that can be sold to the council and hold council tenants.

Check where this is on the site plan and if you want to be near it.

@Wendybyrdesmissingconscience

And don’t buy anywhere near a children’s playground. They are a juvenile nuisance magnet.

My house is right in front of the playground. No problems at all.

I was a bit worried about it and thought we should have maybe chosen differently but the other plots of our style house had small driveways. Actually has been amazing, my daughter was 6 when we moved here and has played out the front right from the start as I can see her from the window! The only issues are with footballs but I just move them onto the big football field which was built for that purpose!

Ask about any outstanding snagging and the builders' policy for dealing with this.

Are the bathrooms fully or half tiled? If you want fully tiled bathrooms is there an opportunity to pay extra and have this done.

How large is your drive? if you need more parking space, ask about the cost of having your drive extended.

Definitely check if there are any trees with TPOs on or near to your property. Some trees like pines really attract pigeons and the poop is a real nuisance to clear off the drive / car.

Bear in mind you likely won’t be able to board/use your loft for storage without invalidating your nhbc warranty.

The majority of new houses are now built with the roof trusses only capable of holding the weight of the roof and nothing else. We were told we can put empty suitcases/Xmas decorations up there but any more and it could cause the ceilings/door lintels to sag. We were aware of this before we bought our new build (have been in 3 months now and love it!) but I think a lot of people get a nasty surprise.

Also agree with pp and ask about the slope of the development. We have a lovely flat garden but some of our neighbours further down the road have a really steep slope - you’d never have known that from looking at the plans.

Ask to see the actual CAD plans of the house style you’re looking at. These are accurate floor plans with specific measurements for kitchen units, distances between doors and walls etc, and there will also be electrical plans for where all the sockets are. The floor plans they use for marketing can’t really be trusted and often bear little resemblance to the actual dimensions.

You’ll be in a good position to negotiate as they’ll be keen to get some plots sold, and you’ll also likely get a v good price compared to later phases of the development. Developers tend to add £5k-£10k onto prices for each new phase, so there’s an incentive to get in early if you don’t mind living on a building site for a bit!

Good luck 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

We have a shared drive (detached house) and it's definitely preferable to others on our estate who have their own drives. All the single driveways have 2 spots but it's 1 car behind the other so can be annoying if someone needs to move for you to get out. All the plots with shared drive have 2 spots each, all in a row. So the driveway is 4 spots wide, and the spaces are quite big so we can both squeeze 4 cars on to our drives. Food for thought. All depends on the site plans

Check the direction of the garden

Check shared access (driveways in particular)

Boundaries

Who is responsible for fences

Who maintains communal areas

Check plugs and ensure you get more put in if needed
They are not always where you want 😂

Parking is often an issue

People will park wherever they want and lay claim to spots in front or near their houses once they move in

You cannot plan for this but it is worth thinking about

Check how overlooked you are is it directly or only from second floor rooms

I have lived in three new homes by the way and love them

Currently live in a 1930s and the issues are still similar (annoying neighbours 😂)

@SavoyCabbage

It's all about the parking. You want parking and you want your neighbours to have parking too so there are no parking wars.

100% this.

That was our biggest problem. Lots of houses in new builds will only be allocated one space - hows that going to work for most people with two cars. Think about visitors to the estate as part of this too.

Other things were about who managed the estate (were the council going to adopt roads, or was it privately managed - with fee. And how much is that fee and how its calculated/increases yearly)
We also had things like railings promised on the plans to stop problem parking but they were axed (no one ever told us)

We were told it was going to be leasehold until the estate was complete, then would be freehold. This was bullshit and turned up at the last minute in the legals - our solictor spotted it.

Is the estate fully owned or does it have housing association homes on it too? Unfortunately I know that there were always problems on our old estate with the HA homes.

We had a covenent in the purchase which prohibited businesses being registered to your address on the estate.

Make sure the the doorway entrance hall area will be easy enough to get in furniture
I watched a tv programme a few years ago about new builds where you can’t get furniture in the front door and they had to take out windows to get in furniture

There is an estate local to me that had a problem with getting furniture up the bend in the stairwell. It mean you couldn't get particularly large wardrobes and beds up there. There was a big thing in the local press about it.

Also agree with pp and ask about the slope of the development. We have a lovely flat garden but some of our neighbours further down the road have a really steep slope - you’d never have known that from looking at the plans.

Think about this in the context of surface run off water too. I know my old estate developed a problem with flooding in some houses because of it, even though it was close to the top of a hill. Think about historic flooding generally because so many new builds have been built on flood plains - check out the enviroment agency website for risk of flooding if in doubt.

If you are in a culdesac, are you in the prime turning spot.

can you walk to shops / a park / buses / kids school etc? Or are you 100% dependent on your car?

Good one this. I forget what the proper geographical term for it, but its where you get an estate - which can be in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of a town but there's no shops, no bus stop etc. It causes a problem for teenagers who are unable to go anyway or get to work on their own steam. Or for you if you have a problem with you car or you are a family with one car - and a parent (usually mum) effectively is stranded on the estate with a pushchair and no ability to get anywhere.

What is the access into and out of the estate like? Is it onto a busy road. Think about lots of cars trying to exit the estate in the morning.

Storage generally. Is there any built in? Will you need to put in wardrobes. If you do, how does that work once you have a bed in.

Manholes is a big one. You don't want shit coming up into your garden if there is a problem, when you could have bought the house next door without the manhole.

Space in the kitchen - how many cupboards are there. Is there space for dishwasher / washer etc. How much work surface is there. Its much harder to envisage if you buy off plan. A lot of new builds have very limited space in the cupboards.

I'm yet to hear of a new build thats completed on time, so think about how you will cope with that if things are delayed. You may need to end a rental or sell your property before you move in.

To add I have lived in three new builds (3 bed semi then 4 bed detached and another 4 bed detached) the first had the biggest kitchen with the most storage, the most recent had the least 🙄

That is how it has changed

This is so useful, thank you everyone. Loads of questions I wouldn’t have even considered asking so will write a list and go armed with them.

Oh just thought of some more:
Check what comes as standard in the kitchen - I've noticed most don't have microwave s anymore, whereas ours was built-in as part of the kitchen.
Where can you store the hoover?
Is there space for a dryer (if you have one) - there is usually a space for a washing machine but not often a dryer.
What was the site previously? If it's a brownfield site, what was there before? This can cause problems in the garden (we have the remains of a road under ours).
If you already own s fridge and/or freezer, ask if you can forego the fitted one for extra cupboard space (as long as there's room for your fridge/freezer in the rest of the kitchen)
If you do buy one, ask for a tub of the paint the decorators used so if you need to do any touch-ups after moving in, you can.

@Wendybyrdesmissingconscience

No cul de sacs.

I disagree with that - cul de sac means no through traffic (cars or people) so the only people that are there are those that should be there. IMO, that's better for security.

@SavoyCabbage

It's all about the parking. You want parking and you want your neighbours to have parking too so there are no parking wars.

Absolutely this. You need parking (if you have a big enough front garden you have scope to add more in future if needed) and you need your neighbours to have good parking too. Or you will be starting your own parking thread before you know it.

I’ve never lived on a new development but our house was almost newly built when we bought it, one of two on an infill site.

From my perspective my biggest gripe was that all the fixtures and fittings from skirting boards to interior doors to floor boards to kitchen and bathroom were crap. They’ve all been changed over the years. They look good new, but are ready to be changed a few short years later.

I’ve friends and family on housing developments and the one thing that got me every time when visiting was the parking and the kids. Everywhere. Cars all over the street and half on the kerbs with children chucking balls in the street and abandoned bikes on the road.

It’s cute when yours are of a similar age and have new friends. It’s not when they’ve grown up a few years later.

DD nearly bought a small starter home on a new estate but dropped out when we discovered that the council hadn’t adopted the roads and wouldn’t until the water supplier adopted the drains etc.they wouldn’t adopt them as some water pump wasn’t installed to standard.

Because we were on an unadopted estate we were restricted to the big six energy suppliers for gas and electric.

Not so much an issue atm cos all the smaller ones have gone bust!

It might be worth thinking about future proofing yourself in terms of energy though. How easily could you put a car electric point in and would your house lend itself to getting a ground heat pump in future?

Been thinking of buying a new build and this is all a bit of an eye opener!

From my perspective my biggest gripe was that all the fixtures and fittings from skirting boards to interior doors to floor boards to kitchen and bathroom were crap. They’ve all been changed over the years. They look good new, but are ready to be changed a few short years later.

This especially, as my main reason is I will be on my own and don't want to do work. But thinking about every renovation we've had done it's so true. Don't trust a builder to pick even a light switch for you never mind a door, it will be the cheapest of the cheap.

Thank you all so much for the help so far. Can I also ask about time frames? Essentially we may need to wait until April to apply for a mortgage due to DP being self employed and Covid bringing down his income last year. We could probably do it sooner but we’d be able to borrow a fair bit more with this years accounts included in his average.
What was the time frame like for you from seeing the plans to being able to reserve to exchange?

• Is the garden going to be turfed or just left?
• Check the plot isn’t near any potential nuisances, I.e playgrounds, community centre, unused land, basically anywhere where you can get groups of people gathering. The further away the better.
• Parking. We have a garage and a double drive, plenty of room for two cars . However if the houses around you have more cars than spaces it’s a problem. As mentioned many times people will park anywhere as long as it’s convenient for them. Where we live parking directly opposite our drive is a problem as we have little/no room to manoeuvre. It’s not a deal breaker but it is extremely frustrating.
• Choose a non rendered house if you have the choice, rendering needs repainting which is costly and is an eyesore when it’s left.
• Negotiate some discount especially if you are buying off plan.
• If there are any extras you want, get that done at building stage.
• Don’t accept anything shoddy . If it’s not good enough keep on at them until it’s sorted. Ask them what their turn around time is for snags. No one wants to waits weeks/months to get poor finishes put right.