House purchase dilemma

[Adventureplease]

We are looking at houses.
We ideally wanted one that needed some work doing so that we could add value. We have done this before a few times successfully.
Partly we wanted to do this so that if we have to move on in a few years we would be unlikely to be out of pocket, and might even make a small profit to move up the ladder.

However, we are struggling to find anything that fits the bill. And we have been looking for ages.
We have found a very nice new build which is genuinely well built and finished to a good standard (high end kitchen, granite tops, nice flooring, etc.)
It is an eco house, part of a small development on the edge of a desirable town, it has solar panels, car charging point, triple glazing etc and is A rated for energy.
We know people who live in another house on the small estate and they basically paid nothing to heat their home last winter and it is always toasty in their house.

The house we are looking at is one of the last of the houses on the estate to sell, they are open to offers and it is possible that we could get decent movement on the price as we are cash buyers.
I guess my questions are, do you think it
would hold its value better as it is an eco house, with low costs to run?
Do you see those things as desirable/worth paying a bit more for?
And, even with some movement on the price and the low bills would we still be better to hold out for a property that can push us a bit further up the ladder in the long run?

Sorry if this is a bit garbled. We have been going round in circles for some time on this so my head is all over the place.
Any advice welcome!
thank you

Sounds great, I think it is hard to add value now, unless you have very good skills as building costs are so high. It is a home not an investment vehicle so the most important thing is whether you want to live there and can afford it.

I think low bills in current times are worth their weight in gold. It’s a good selling point when you come to buy. Also given the current high cost of building work and materials - not having to shell out ££ on renovation is another plus. I would gfi.

At my work we talk to a lot of people in new build houses and i am genuinely shocked at how much lower their bills have been than our own, the last few years. I had often thought there cant be that much in it (we are in an older house but have upgraded insulation, windows etc) and there really is!

It doesn’t read like you love it and for it to be your home, you should.

We’ve just put our house on the market. It’s a 15 year old, 4 bed new build that isn’t in a desirable area and it still has its original kitchen and bathrooms. All we’ve done is paint the kitchen cupboards and fit an oak worktop. We paid 340 and have been advised that it will sell for 450+, which were really happy about.How much profit have you made on your previous houses?

Thank you for your replies. They are all helpful and thought provoking.

@Sunnyandsilly you are right, I don’t love it. But it is very nice.
Also, I’m unlikely to find something that I love this time. We are moving to a more expensive area and buying without a mortgage which means we are looking at significantly less desirable properties than the one that we last owned.
I do realise how lucky we are to be able to be mortgage free though!
I just want to be doing the best and most sensible thing with our little bit of capital, as well as obviously purchasing a nice home for our family.

@Ftctvycdul Our last house we bought for £380,000 and sold for £700,000. We did do a lot of work but we also made a healthy profit. We have also flipped a couple of houses before that, doing much less work and making a profit of around 50-80k, that is after taking into account moving costs, stamp duty etc.

Other factors I'd consider - you don't want to risk losing your buyer (if you have one) or be in the situation where you need to rent for too long as that'll cost extra.

I guess you've been pestering all the agents to let you know if they have anything that comes on market immediately that ticks your boxes, to let you know.

It sounds like a very different proposition from your previous moves. I've been a serial doer upper and have never lived in a newbuild either, but having just about survived the bills last winter in our drafty period house, and thinking about the maintenance which is once again needed, I'm starting to change my mind. You probably need to think more about whether you'd like to live in it rather than whether it looks nice or will make you money. Not having to heat or renovate the house is a significant bonus these days.

The other way to look at it is if you buy the new build and then invest the money you would save on renovations and running costs perhaps into a pension or stocks and shares, property is not the only way to make money, particularly nowadays.

Thanks again for the replies. More good points.
Just to add, we sold our house some time ago so we are not in a chain. We have a place to live for the summer but really want to find somewhere soon as know it can take some time for conveyancing etc.

This is wise advice.

I think house purchases should always be head over heart. Heart leads you to a Georgian folly with turrets and exorbitant heating costs.

I rented an eco house once and in 18 months never once had to put the heating on. We had air source heat pumps, solar panels, fantastic insulation, rain water harvesting for loo flush etc. Our utility bills were peanuts.

To echo others it’s very hard to add value through renovations and improvements atm.
It’s also so much harder to get work done than it was pre covid. I’d go for the eco house

The eco house, future proofed and very resellable, sounds a much better prospect than a hard work house.
as for loving a house, it can be better to be more pragmatic, and love grows for houses. If you endure another doer upper you might fall in love with that too and be reluctant to part with it! But why would you not love a house that’s already functional, safe, cosy and dry, low bills, surely that’s golden!
good advice above too about other means of investment.

My head says Eco house. But I would thoroughly check out the specs. Are the solar panels, heating systems and the rest all likely to go end of life at the same time? How long is the warranty on the new tech.
My brother bought a fabulous eco house 5 yrs ago and his run costs are minimal for a large 5 bed house, we've just installed solar panels and generate significant additional energy on a like for like basis.
So my point is that the Eco house may have a point where it needs reinvestment and it's worth considering whether that's within your planned tenure or could prove a blocker to a sale in due course. Any house can need a new boiler, roof, etc obviously but my query would be whether there's a likely point where they ALL expire at the same time.

There's no crime in pausing on the doer upper phase. No reason your retirement phase can't be another one. The market is horrible for building costs right now though.

THIS

Thanks again.
More food for thought.
Some really interesting points about eco builds.
I do think it would be lovely not to worry about the heating bills over winter.
I will also ask about warranties etc as that is a good point.
I do think I could learn to love it. I certainly didn’t love my old house when we bought it but we made it into a beautiful home.