Old House or New Build

[freetheunicorn1]

Which is the best buy?

In the area we want to live our options are 100+ granite houses or new builds.

Which would you prefer. The way I see it the older houses have character but the potential to have expensive problems and difficult to heat. New builds everything is shiny and new but can have so much snagging issues and rather bland.

Room sizes and gardens are fairly similar in our options.

I dislike them both for reasons you mention.

Instead I look in areas where I can find other housing stock between about 30 and 100 years old.

10 years is about the age everything in current new builds seem to fall apart. Have it in current rental and an old rental, both exactly 12 years old. It is a pita and a ton of repairs and maintenance needed.

Go older and generally people have lived in them long enough to get fed up and get all this stuff fixed.

My experience of 'new builds' from 30 years ago is far better room sizes, less intrusive spacing between neighbours and estates having enough foliage as to not look like some sort of dystopian cookie cutter hell.

Also, when these new builds spring up, people will be doing DIY in them and raising screamy kids. The older estates seem to mostly be owned by boomers who have done all of that and now it's just a quiet place to live.

Any newbuilds that have already been lived in for a few years?
We've had a new build, and a much older house. Now in a 25 year old house.
I wouldn't buy brand new again - but would buy a nearly new house over the beautiful victorian stuff around us. The upkeep and heating of the victorian terrace was massive.

New builds these days are like shoe boxes and are generally not great quality.

With an older property, you at least know it is stable - yes, more cash injection will be required but at least you’ll have it to how you want it to be and not a general specification that these new builds are built to.
I mean you can renovate a new build if you really want to… but what is the point?

I prefer an older property, but have lived and been happy in both. I think in either case its important to get a decent survey done. For older properties this means you know of anything urgent that needs sorting and for newer properties you get a better idea of the quality of the build etc. You do get NHBC with a newbuild, but they often don't seem to cover everything.