developers - the good, the bad and the ugly

[comeondover]

I'm considering a new build, which is a bit of a departure for me. Can we crowdsource an informal trustpilot for developers here? I'm guessing some companies build better quality houses than others. Would love to hear MNers experiences. And how common is it for houses to start showing problems after the 10-year guarantee is up?

Big development here, front row on the main road was the ghastly barrack-block flats. For over a year someone had a six feet square sign, hung on the tiny balcony, saying 'Don't buy Bovis.'

Wouldn’t touch Bovis with a barge pole. Or Persimmon.

We have a second home (yeah, I know) which is a Fleur Home (Norfolk) and it’s amazing. Over five years and never had an issue. Very high spec as well (good inbuilt appliances, top quality flooring, decent quality finishing - F&B paint, for example). Huge garden and lots of space between houses and mature plants already in the garden when we bought to shield any potential overlook in the future. We use it as a holiday let - so it’s been through the wars a bit - and, despite that, it’s still in perfect condition appliance/build wise.

Primary residence is Millwood Wood Designer Homes (now rebranded to Elvia Homes). About ten years since we moved in, decent quality finishing, no issues at all. Huge garden. Lots of space between houses and also a real sense of community. No one on the estate (about fifteen home) has moved yet and everyone is always really pleased with their quality of their homes.

As with anything, you get what you pay for. I could have bought new build a five bed detached from Bovis or Persimmon (on nearby estates outside big towns) for the same price as a two bed MDW or FH. I appreciate not everyone will have that level of finance available, but I think if you need to buy Bovis or Persimmon - you’d be better off getting an older home! It’s not just about the fact they fall apart and are a bit crap, it’s the stress and grief of trying to get anything fixed.

We bought from a local developer (thinking that they’d be better than some of the big names) and frankly the quality is crap. Everyone has had problems, some of them pretty huge and the aftercare has just been appalling. It’s a shame because we’ve built a lovely little community on the street but the developer has simply treated this street as a cash cow to fund more exclusive builds elsewhere and won’t invest money into correcting their faults

I think you need to worry more about immediately after buying. Some builders seem to have a very poor reputation and for example, join the “Do Not Buy a Persimmon Home” Facebook group will give you a feel for what their customers are experiencing.
A friend bought new from a smaller builder. The house design was lovely as was the estate but the build quality was just awful. She was in tears on moving in day and the carpets/ floor covering couldn’t even be laid as the floors were in a terrible state including huge cracks from drying too quickly …they use a quick dry chemical. Windows cracked, kitchen with chips off units. The lawn was an utter bog and grass couldn’t even grow properly. When dug up was just rubble and solid clay and didn’t even meet basic standard required by NHBC. She needed up with a huge rectification list, hesitate to call it snagging as some was major .

We bought a David Wilson in 2021 so it was part of Barratt homes. We love it!

It's a solid house and any teething issues we had at the beginning were addressed really quickly with no back-and-forth; while the builders were still on-site they'd call around the next day, and once they moved off there's a customer care team that would typically complete the work within a couple of weeks.

Compared to some of the other developments in our area, the houses just look more 'premium'. If we ever moved again we'd look for more David Wilson houses because I feel like we know what we're getting.

There are some higher end mainstream builders, like Berkeley Homes. There will be snags with any new build, but Berkeley are better than most at responding and fixing.

I wouldn’t buy from any developer who provides only the basics, because the hidden costs of making the property habitable can be considerable. Upgrades are possible at most build stages, but are expensive.

I expect white goods, decent floor covering, turfed back garden, landscaped front garden ( although they’re usually very corporate), good quality fittings.

Persimmon have a poor reputation nationally, not a fan of Bovis, Bellway, Barratt or Taylor Woodrow. Linden Homes, Cala Homes and Redrow have a lot of sites. Redrow are very pushy when you make an enquiry, unless you stop them sending emails.

We’ve had two Berkeley Homes, but they are more expensive. We’ve looked at Bloor Homes and I like their style, but they’ve not had what we want in budget when we’ve been looking.

In the end, it depends on the quality of the work the sub contractors do and that varies from site to site, phase to phase and house to house. Expect teething problems with any new house, but expect them to be acknowledged and rectified in timely fashion. Expect a good finish on walls, ceilings, floors, fixtures and fittings and complain if it isn’t.

We had a really poor experience with Cala homes. Lots of corner cutting and poor after sales

I don't think any of the big chains are great in terms of quality these days.

You might do better with smaller ones, but it's a lottery. I would probably have a good look round an empty one to see what it looks like, but beware the "showhome finish" where they might actually finish to a better standard on something they show to you.

It is actually quite hard to tell how well built a house is, because you can cosmetically cover up a lot of problems and it can be quite hard to see beneath the surface.

Thanks all, this is just the kind of intel I was hoping for.

@ThreeB can you give us a clue as to who? eg if you don't want to name them, what do they rhyme with?

Do developers usually give info on construction methods and materials used? If not, is that a normal/ok thing to ask?

And do you still get a survey on a new build?

You can negotiate on service charge. I had one offer to remove it, and one offer to pay my contributions for 30 years. I’m sure others have other success stories. The developers frame them as a given but they’re not. My current new build is service charge free

You can get special new build snagging surveys which give you a list of things to go back to the developer with for them to put right. I wouldn’t bother with a structural survey.

I would probably case the development pretty comprehensively. Think about flood zones, traffic management, unadopted roads etc. Check maintenance fees. Search with google for the estate planning, who objected and what reasons they gave.

I would not under any circumstances get the developers solicitor/conveyancer and would probably be more interested in professional snagging than surveys.

There is a thread on here with all the information you can check in advance of a purchase, asome of which will be applicable and some not.

I suspect there is a limit to how much of a picky customer you can be before they lose interest in selling to you.

It’s a north east based company - is that the area you’re looking at buying in?

They will say no, but please do. We didn’t get one and issues started cropping up a few years later that we couldn’t have possibly known about during the “snagging” period, for example a leaking roof after 5 years because a piece of plywood had been shoved where plastic should be and rotted away. They can cut corners you just don’t know about unless you get a survey

No it's not, so I guess I don't need to know who they are!

Oh no that sounds so shoddy, and expensive. I hope you were able to get it sorted under the guarantee.

The thing about surveys that annoys me is that while they might find a potential problem, they also might not. ie the problem's there but they don't see it, and you've spend £hundreds on something so heavily caveatted it's pretty much worthless

There’s the thing to be careful of - after the first 2 years you only have the NHBC guarantee left, and it has a mimimim claim value for each type of problem. I think the minimum for ours was £500 and we’d paid 350 so we got nothing back. The same thing happened a few months later with the boiler - got an engineer out for a run of the mill repair, discovered it had been unsafely installed from day 1 but again it came under the minimum claim value so another few hundred out of pocket plus 3 days of no hot water while it was taken out and reinstalled.
Unless all of your issues are seen within the developer guarantee period you could still be out of pocket. I would take the hit now and get a survey, I wish we did.

Thanks. I'm sorry you had to be a cautionary tale but I'm grateful for the insight. Currently still undecided, but all this infi is v helpful

I think you need information on the individual site rather the builder themselves. Someone upthread had a great experience with a certain builder and would go with them to be safe in future but our house from them was shockingly done and literally dangerous. And our whole site were in the complaints process for months/years after. Whereas our next home was from a “bad” builder and it was great.

I have a follow-up question - are new homes like new cars in that their value drops immediately and disproportionately upon purchase?

The value drops initially, it’s said, but we’ve had four new build houses and the three we’ve sold have all increased. The last one by £100K.

It varies from place to place.

Even if house designs are identical, the places in which they are built are not.

So for example, you could buy a house in one place, a year after a new tube station is announced within walking distance, price goes up quite a bit. Same design of house with no tube station nearby price goes down.

Houses are unique. Like people. Some are in demand and some aren't.

Type of house and area is also significant.

There are newish build flats 200 yards away from me that have not yet recovered their 2005 purchase price. There are 4 bed detached backing on to my place that are worth 50% more than in 2005. Neither have kept pace with inflation, but one set has increased a lot more than another.