Newly built house

[bunny85]

Hi everyone.
We're in the process of buying a house and we absolutely fell in love with one newly built house. We like everything about it and love the fact that's it's new. However I started googling and google says the life span of a newly built house is 60 years because the materials that are used nowadays are not good. I'm extremely gutted and don't know what to think. Any words of wisdom? Many thanks!

Depends who built it. We bought ours off a small local builder, got 10 year warranty and he comes round if I complain about anything. Very little snagging to do too. I wouldn't touch one by a big housebuilder though - far too much bad publicity!

I work in a construction related industry, a lot of the tradespeople I know wouldn't go near a new build, especially the big sites by well known developers.

@Malaguena123 it wasn't a big construction company, was an individual builder (obviously didn't just do it himself) and it comes with 10 year warranty

We bought a new build off one of the big developers, been in it 10 years and never had an issue. We love our home not all new builds are crap.

Like any product the quality varies.

I live in a 20 year old house. Some of the cosmetic internal bodging has to be seen to be believed. But the outside brickwork I think is good and the inside brickwork as well. I also think the joists/beams are good. I suspect the foundations are built to a lot higher standard than older houses. The windows are amazing and still in great shape.

The pipework is very "hidden". Everything is behind walls so if there is a leak in that part it is much harder to spot and can probably do a lot of damage before being found/reparied.

However it is a pretty warm house, and the sound isolation is much better than older houses I have lived in.

So horses for courses really.

I suspect there was a pretty significant decrease in build quality post 2007 in mass market new builds.

It's one of your biggest purchases ever so regardless of the builder, get it snagged (see Google or YT for further details). The 10 year warranties are generally considered to be pretty poor in terms of protection. 2 years for most things and the other 8 just in case the house falls down (so to speak).

Houses are always about how you look after them irrespective of age. A new build does not mean it should not be maintained periodically, get into the habit of checking roof, guttering, windows etc. Do not plant directly up against the house as to cause any damp.

Get the boiler serviced every year, every 5 years get an EICR check done on the electrics. Always open the windows to let the house air most days, even in winter for a short while.

None of it is rocket science but will go towards keep the house in good order as the years tick by.

It depends on if it's timber frame or traditional brick and block construction. The former I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, the latter is fine.

60 years is the timeframe for timber frame. I think there will be issues with on obtaining a mortgage on these within the next decade.

As a previous poster says - it’s all down to timber frame or block/brick construction.

An oak frame will last for many hundreds of years, and many homeowners of new builds are unlikely to know what construction their house is.

I would far rather purchase a new home from an individual builder than a large housebuilder. It will be easy to view the architect/building reg plans for this house and I suggest the @bunny85 does exactly that.

Considering there is a political push to build loads more homes, is it really the case that nobody is going to buy them as they will not last more than 60 years?

People have been slagging off the build quality of newbuilds for as long as newbuilds have existed. And yet all those "ticky tacky boxes" they built in the 60s haven't fallen down yet. But any property needs to be looked after - whether you buy a perfect newbuild today, or an old, solid doer upper, things will wear out and deteriorate and need repair and replacement.

Some have actually fallen down (or been demolished as a result of issues). There are news reports confirming it.

However, major issues are extremely rare and not something people should worry about unnecessarily.

There are lots of small issues (see YT snagging videos) that many unskilled people would not notice. These could cause more issues later if not addressed in time.

I like to think of snagging as a way of holding the builders to account and hopefully driving up standards if they know that short cuts and unsupervised work will cost them more in the long term.

"However, while there is no doubt more homes are needed in the UK, buyers aren’t impressed with new builds. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Building found that 60pc of people said that they would not buy a new home, with fears of poor workmanship cited as one of the primary reasons."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/new-build-lost-75000-value-fear-will-collapse/

Ours is a 1969/70 box ... it is quite literally falling to bits.

And the joy of it... " problem is a design flaw, open plan box, not enough tying the 2 sides of the house together..." ergo, not covered by insurance

We had a new build home which was part of an ethical/eco construction by a small builder. My god it was a good house. Well insulated, cost next to nothing to run, well thought out for modern living, oodles of storage space and absolutely lovely to live in.

60 years is a lifetime really. If it's built by a good developer I'd plump for 60 years in a new build with all modern conveniences rather than 60 with high energy bills, draughts etc.

Thank you very much everyone for the responses!