Buying a newish new build - which builders are good?

[Mamma2025]

We are buying a house in a relatively new development. Houses are anywhere from 5-15 years old.

Is this long enough for snags to be ironed out? Should I avoid builders like Bovis and Perismmon? Is there a list of builders who are ranked or categorised by build quality?

I found this customer survey but I’m not sure how useful it is - all builders score more than 90% or 4 stars.

https://www.hbf.co.uk/

I find it depends more on the site specifically than the builder. Our last house was by a “5 start builder” who is the posher brand of a big developer and people often talk about them being a safe bet quality wise. Our house was literally dangerous and there were other glaring flaws that should never have been allowed. Every house on the estate that I know was in the complaints procedure for serious faults that weren’t rectified at all.

Whereas other people I know and our new house are from one of the “worst name” builders and have been fantastic.

If you can get accepted into the residents group for the estate, that will give you an idea of what things are like. A lot of it will be moaning about irrelevant things, but if you scroll back far enough you’ll see the complaints from the build. If you can’t do that, I’d recommend asking some neighbours of any houses you’re interested in what they think.

What’s the turnover of properties like? Ie lots of sales but people live there for a short period of time before moving on?

I think you can review developers, but I imagine the people who do review will be unhappy.

There are several volume developers that I wouldn’t touch. One mid volume high end that we’ve bought two houses from and two small local ones we’ve bought from.

Ignore the 5 star stuff. See what they offer, whether people stay for a reasonable length of time, whether the houses look as though they’re of good quality after a few years, particularly if they have render.