New housing in the UK

[RichTea90]

Sorry this is a bit of a ranty post but I live in South East England I’m 33 years old. Trying to get on the property ladder with a 40k deposit and a joint income of £119k. We are looking at 3 bed new build as want to start a family but they’re all so expensive and about 30-40k out of our budget.

Why is the government letting all of these greedy house building companies build and sell properties that are just not affordable to normal, every day people / couples / families. I think it’s truly scandalous.

instead im staring at Rightmove looking at a lot of properties that are so outdated or falling down and we just don’t have enough money to / disposable income to then do the property up.

feeling rather stressed 😩 is anyone else in the same position or understands what I mean

You will definitely get a decent 3 bed for £420 in west kent. I live in one

I think you are over thinking location. You both work remotely ?

Pick Somewhere you like and can afford and don't worry about a commute that neither of you do

My first thought is why are you trying to buy a three bed brand new house? Of course they are expensive. Land is expensive, tradesmen need paying the going rate. Building materials are expensive.

My first home was a tatty two bed maisonette with a weed patch as a garden. I did it up - learning how to maintain a house along the way, then sold it for a profit that reflected all my hard work, and moved to a two bed house, where I used the skills I had gained to do that up too, sold and made a bit more equity, and finally bought a tatty three bed house, where I had ds.

Then when the full horror of nursery fees, maternity pay and the cost of nappies hit, I knew how to maintain a house on a shoestring, without needing to pay decorators or gardeners. I had a smaller mortgage. It made survival much easier.

It's not her first home though, it's her third. She's said this several times.

@MistyMountainTop But why buy brand new? They are always at least 10% above market rate, to give the developer his profit.

Why not choose a 20yo house with all the snagging sorted, a mature garden and no £40,000 mark-up?

Well I wouldn't because of the higher price! My neighbour was looking at downsizing and all the new build 2 bed houses just down the road were the same price as her 15 year old 3 bed!

Although in her case the mature garden was shingle with no plants...

You can definitely get a house in budget in Basingstoke, train is 50 minutes to Waterloo.

I think there is more going on here than meets the eye. A combined income of over £100k, no current housing costs, a £40k deposit and two previously owned (and presumably sold) houses, means that the OP should be in a ok position to buy somewhere in the SE.

33 is very young these days to have already owned two houses in the SE.

come on though...Basingstoke

can also get a house in Reading and surrounding areas within budget, Bracknell and Wokingham too.

That's more like it.

Don't know why people on here are being Miss Marples. OPs finances are nothing to do with us!

What about Ashford and the surrounding villages? The high speed train is 40 minutes into St Pancras for the commute and there are plenty of nice houses that fit into your budget. It may not be as posh as some of the other areas but it might be worth considering.

This house for example is 4 beds with a big garden and garage for £425k

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143988062

I’d look at Wokingham, Bracknell, Crownthorne, Earley. Loads for your budget there and good schools and transport links. I’d avoid a town house with main bedroom on the top as once you have kids you likely wont actually want to be on a different floor until they’re older! :)

What’s wrong with Basingstoke? It’s not the prettiest, but trains every 10 minutes, less than an hour to Waterloo, good connection to Reading, two lovely theatres, much more bang for your buck than further east, places to eat, cinemas, surrounded by lovely countryside, low unemployment, decent services. There really are worse places to live and OP could get a house in budget.

Just that nicer places have been mentioned on this thread than Basingstoke. The best part about it seems to be the transport links out of it.

No, they’re really not.. thank you!

cor, so much judgement on this site!

Yeah, I really don’t like Basingstoke.

happy to check out Wokingham….

Wokingham is really nice. It is a bit of a slow train to London, though.

Agh, that’s a shame. I guess you gotta compromise somewhere. Though, I think that could be a deal breaker for us.

Where are you based @Twiglets1 Are you in the south?

I am - I'm near Wokingham & Reading but don't want to be any more specific on here. Reading has some nice areas like Caversham that are walking distance to the train station with a fast train to London Paddington.

One thing to be wary of with new builds OP is that they really are absolute bare bones and it’s not always true that they throw money & bundle deals etc at you!

We also bought a new build thinking similar, ready to move into (neither of us are very handy/DIY at all, so a reno would have cost us an absolute fortune in paying for labour), thought it would be exactly as we wanted it from day one etc. Seemed perfect! Online adverts showed some offers they had on, so we went for it. I don’t regret it because I do love our house BUT it cost us another £10k to get “our house” like this. They don’t come with any flooring, so where with a second hand property you could just live in it for abit and save for new carpets if you wanted to, you need to buy flooring straight away- that was £3k.

It didn’t come with any appliances, so that was nearly £2k for integrated appliances.

It didn’t even come with turf in the back garden, the back garden was literally a pile of mud, and to have the turf in was £900.

Not to mention the bathroom comes with no tiles (who would have a shower with just paint on the wall?!!!), again that was £900ish.

You only had a choice of 2 kitchen cupboards and 2 bench tops which would have been “free”- both ugly- so that was £1.3k to upgrade to ones we wanted.

Our bedroom & living room came with 1 plug socked as standard, we had to pay for more😂

And you have to pay all of that in advance, cash, so you need it on top of your deposit.

I still don’t regret it and I still love our house but it’s important to realise that a new build can still come with another £10k of payments on top of deposit x

For W Kent have a look at Penenden Heath and Allington. Both have good access to the motorway and there will be "old' properties in good condition within your budget. Also some new builds going up in Aylesford.

It's much quicker, but more expensive, to go into Reading then to Paddington from there than the direct train from Wokingham.

Wow, which house builder was this? All the ones we have looked at so far include flooring, worktops, adequate plug sockets, turf and good quality appliances like Bosch or Zanussi. Some have even wanted to throw things in like Sonos (Cala).