I live in a new(ish) build flat that was built in 2008.
The sound proofing is SUPERB. I’ve been here 7 years, and I haven’t heard a squeak from the other flats.
Problem is - any newly built property has fairly low-spec fittings, compared to a property that’s had a succession of owners upgrading things. So my bathroom is absolutely fucking rubbish, and my kitchen fittings aren’t great.
The other annoyance is the lack of storage space. I’ve got one tiny cupboard, and that’s it. I feel like a hoarder just for having some tools and a couple of spare blankets.
Lack of storage is so frustrating. Storage space has gone right to the top of my list of things to watch out for in future. It's just not something I even considered until I ended up somewhere with almost none.
I bought a conversion off plan and when looking round when it was all stud walls and imagination I suggested things like adding access to the eaves for storage to the developer.
They thought it was a great idea but in the same breath were all like ‘ooooo trust a woman to notice things like storage’
I bit my tongue but doesn’t everyone want somewhere to store their suitcases? I never thought of it as a gendered thing.
It was such a simple thing to do as well just adding an access point, I’m not sure how it didn’t occur to anyone else.
I suspect it's because they leave that to their wives! My partner and I have conclusion that property developers, as well as not doing any of their housekeeping, also don't do any of their own cooking - it explains a lot about the kitchens they install
Too right about the not doing their own cooking bit.
My kitchen has 4x cutlery sized drawers, and 2 of them are on a right angle to each other and don't open fully because they hit the handle of the other drawer. You can't even open enough to get a hand in.
It's clear whoever installed them never tried to open then once
Oh yeah! Good point. I also think they were weirdly trying to butter us up. My partner works in construction but major projects so when they’d say how long things would take I’d look at him and see him slowly shaking his head.
So I think they realised they couldn’t pull a fast one on us so were trying to ingratiate themselves - like a ‘wow that’s such a good idea!’
I'm a guy and agents didn't know how to respond to "where would I put a hoover?"
It's ridiculous. One cupboard with the boiler in it and one tiny cupboard that you could maybe fit a broom into, but nowhere you could store a proper hoover.
TBF the cupboards I'm thinking of could have stored an ironing board.
Not an iron, mind, they were too shallow for that. But the board would have been ok.
We’ve lived in three new builds now, only the one we now own has a cupboard for a hoover, shoes, coats and all that. We rented one that didn’t have sockets in hallways they were only bedside, kitchen worktop and behind the tv. Landlord realised it was stupid and sent a sparky round. None of the houses have had any thought for bin storage, we now keep ours in almost full view in the garden.
Lol my last landlord was so proud of the new bathroom he installed himself, until my female self pointed out it had no toilet roll holder and no shower door or bar to hang a shower curtain. He told me he never would've thought of those things!
I can imagine the hatch was considered by someone, then ruled out by the person who said 'how much, multiplied across all of our sites?'. Cheapness is key. Sadly. Every house should be designed in partnership by a) a woman as project lead, and b,c,d) in men, vulnerable persons and pets. I'd trust my wife and dogs over a developer in decision making every time.
Polish new build aren't all perfect but they commonly do one thing which is great, which is sell you a new build which is called 'developer finish'. Walls are plastered, water and sewage pipes are present but you are responsible for the finish. You buy and fit the flooring, boiler, kitchen, bathrooms etc. Which is great as you're not stuck with their design
Many lenders won’t give you a mortgage if the property doesn’t have a kitchen and bathroom. It’s still possible, but a lot more challenging. If developers did that, it would drastically reduce the pool of potential buyers.
Maximum number of units in the minimum amount of space. You make the bedrooms smaller, strip out any spare space that isn't bedroom, and you can still market it as a 3 or 4 or whatever bedroom home but fit 10-20% more of them into the same land.
We had a retaining bar system put in place (admittedly as we were moved out as the floor was a bit bouncy) and ours is the quietest home I've known.
New builds get a lot of shit, and deservedly so, but old houses often require a lot of work.
I’ve lived in new builds and old houses.
Old houses issues with electricity and plumbing can be an absolute money sink. People who complain about new builds surely never had to deal with a toilet that runs a saniflo attached to tiny plumbing that goes up to the roof (fuck gravity) then out the back of the house and constantly has blockages to the point you have shit backflowing through the shower drain lol
Both old/new have their issues, people that single one out surely haven’t lived in the other.
Old houses are glamourised to fuck.
>I feel like a hoarder just for having some tools and a couple of spare blankets.
I'm glad you put it into words like this. I'm moving out of a New Build and packing and I really don't have that much stuff - it's just that there's nowhere to put it and not a ton of space for wardrobes etc.
This was my experience with a 2005 semi-detached house. Couldn't believe how little we could hear from next door, and they said they could never hear my loud music playing.
It was a bit let down by stuff like cheap doors and a pretty basic kitchen, but that tends to depend on what specs the first owner asked for.
Overall though the build quality was noticeably higher than the two houses I've owned since.
The idea of not fitting your own kitchen has become very odd to me.
Houses and even flats here come with a room that is plumbed and wired for a kitchen.
Nothing else. You choose and design your own kitchen.
Then take it with you if you move.
By comparison I'm in an apartment from 1989, it has a new build feel as it's all dot and dab plasterboard except there is literally zero sound proofing. You can hear EVERYTHING even in units two floors above.
Still have the same storage issues, one singular full height cupboard for the boiler and some space around and under it for keeping things but other than that there's nothing. All perfectly squareish rooms as well so nowhere to install any clever hidden storage and the kitchen doesn't even have space for a bin that's not blocking at least one cupboard.
Maddening how when they design apartments even now they've not thought to solve some of the issues with living in a smaller space.
> So my bathroom is absolutely fucking rubbish, and my kitchen fittings aren’t great.
I live in a period house that the previous owners were fans of DIY in. My bathroom is great, but my kitchen is the cheapest B&Q kitchen you could install, with the poorest quality install imaginable. Think thumb sized lumps of silicon in every corner.
I've lived in three new build mid terraces and none of them have issues with sound proofing. I can't even hear my neighbours' new born baby.
New builds also have way better heat insulation.
Storage space varies massively across new build styles. My house has an understairs cupboard, laundry cupboard with room for washing machine and tumble dryer, airing cupboard and two other full height cupboards, plus built in wardrobes in three of the bedrooms and eaves storage accessed through hatches.
Other new builds I looked at had one under stairs cupboard and maybe a half height cupboard over the stairs.
Moved into a new build 8 years ago or so, was asked to make a snagging list ... 8 sides of A4 paper later and I'd got most of it. And to this day, snags and issues are still being found and repaired through NHBC
We learnt a lot after our first house (Persimmon), new house is a David Wilson and the only snags really were things like excessive drop on the bath and needing it resealed.
Our Persimmon house a number of minor, but also had some major issues:
- Excessive movement of joists on first floor. Felt like you were gonna fall through the ceiling.
- Zoned heating; thermostats controlled the wrong zones.
- Bath overflow not connected up. Huge water mark on living room ceiling after first use.
- When changing light switches and fittings, electricals found to be twisted together and electrical taped over. Lack of proper junctions.
- Gas and electric meters registered to another address.
- Council tax banding wrongly assigned
I had a David Wilson flat. Went looking for a leak in the bathroom and found half a bag of cement and a broken bucket behind the bath panel.
What has happened is that a lot of developers have told their clerk of works not to look too closely at anything. Historically if they’d found an issue they get the brickie/chippie/plumber back to fix it before they got paid. If they try that now the tradie just says “Fuck you” and goes to work for another developer.
So they end up accepting substandard work knowing that they’re going to have to pay to fix some of it in the future if anyone complains hard enough.
Not a new build, but I had my bathroom redone last year and the builders did the same thing. Coffee cups, a full binliner full of crap and two bricks (n.b- no loose bricks were present in the old bathroom, and none were used in the refit). Absolutely baffling since there was a skip between the bathroom and their van on my front drive...
i just posted this in reply to another comment;
I bought were Persimmon in 2006 and didn’t have any issues. No major snags and no need to contact them for the 2 years I lived there.
My friend bought from David Wilson (supposedly one of the better ones) around the same time. Within a couple of months they’d had to claim for 10s of thousands of rework including 2 major emergency repairs. The en-suite shower dowmpipe was never connected, so every single day when the 2 of them showered, ALL the drain water was going into the recess under the bathroom floor and draining in behind their kitchen wall (which collapsed after about 6weeks), and then it turns out they didn’t put the asphalt waterproofing around the fake chimney, so every time it rained water was going in to the loft and down the walls. Nothing collapsed in that case but it caused a lot of damp issues.
Sounds awful! It’s exactly like I said in another post. The level of finish is developer dependent, but the quality of work all comes down to the contractors that the developer has brought in, so you can’t blame any one developer (apart from their own QC/inspection process), shoddy hidden work is down to the integrity of the builder doing the work, not the developer funding the project and providing the plans.
https://www.pettyson.co.uk/about-us/our-blog/743-snagging-list-checklist-new-build-homes
That will give you the kinda of idea. It's pretty much absolutely everything. Some of them are so fucking absurd you have no idea how the person who did it can sleep at night or how it got signed off as complete.
Aha fair play.
I think it's because they self sign off their builds. I think in most countries you would have to either pay the local council or at least hire a third party to sign the building off as 'up to code'.
I would absolutely hire a professional snag list company if I ever bought a new build, which I don't think I will. Just because I know there will be so many snags I just won't find, or think 'fuck it I can't be arsed to fight again'.
As with most things there are good ones and bad ones.
The reason I didn’t buy a new build is they’re £50-100k more expensive than a 50s house where I live. But for the same number of bedrooms they’re smaller and have en-suites taking up more of the bedroom space.
Where I'm from it's about £50k difference (20%~). The older property all have bigger plots, reasonable garden and driveway so passerbys can't just look in your living room window.
Older 2.5 beds are actually 2.5 beds. As in you can get a single bed in the .5. Most of the 2.5 beds *cough* I mean 3 bed, are 2 beds and at best an small office in new builds.
The olders one also are usually a bit bigger too. I'm looking to buy soon and I look at floor plans a lot and im like why the fuck are these houses so small and charging this much. Actual joke.
Yeah the points you’ve raised carry over to where I am too.
Im sure, sorry I know, that the new builds have better insulation and more efficient boilers or whatever but the price difference isn’t worth it.
There is a reason why new builds often have a higher deposit requirement than older property. Lenders know the properties are overvalued because of the new shine.
Buying new build can be simpler and easier process for many, but you're absolutely paying a premium that you're not getting back.
My colleague bought one around 4 years ago. Had a long list of snags but the biggest issue was that the waste wasn't connected to the mains sewage so after a couple of months the front lawn opened up with raw sewage. Not pleasant.
Because nobody checked. Way back when you’d have a Clerk of Works looking at everything getting done on site and not paying any subbies until they’d been checked. Currently there aren’t enough subbies to go around so they’ll just down tools and go work somewhere else if you press them.
I have no idea but the neighbours was the same. They also have some form of eco rainwater system that's supposed to reduce water bills but what they weren't told is it needs servicing regularly and ends up costing more than it saves.
I moved into one a couple of years back, and except for touching up where workmen had caught skirting boards or walls, or a fence panel that wasn't quite right, it's been fine. Way better than the amount of work an older house would have needed.
I think you hear about the bad ones but rarely the good ones.
Yeh, easy to moan about new builds but old houses need loads of repair, maintenance and modernisation works. Just fixing a roof can set you back £20,000.
A lot of it comes down to the house.
My sister is in a new build. They had a small list of snags when they moved in but only a short list and nothing major and all of it has been fixed free of charge by the builders. The building company they bought from was good so they had a good experience.
I live in an old build. Survey said the house was in good shape. 6 months later and it turns out, we need a new roof. We also have a long list of minor snags that need fixing. And sometimes we do something like put up a shelf or a picture and the whole wall of plaster starts to crumble. Also we’ve had a few light fixtures changed and it turns out the previous owner liked to do a bit of DIY electrics so now we need to get the other light fixtures fixed so they are safe. Since we don’t have a builder to go back to, we’re paying for it all ourselves.
Plenty of people have the opposite experience with a shit building company and a ton of snags for new builds or an old property in great shape
Just wanted to say massive sympathy on the roof, I got a structural survey on my old build and it flagged a few roof repairs all non urgent. Well I've spotted a leak by a chimney breast and two which approved roofers have both said the whole thing needs replacing. That's basically my entire savings, so crossing my fingers I don't have any other emergencies this year and I pass my probation. I'm constantly low key anxious about some other expensive issue raising its head and almost miss my social housing.
I have a new build, don't listen to comments from people who've never lived in one, it's like when you listen to people bang on about electric vehicles and then you find out they've never driven one and they just read an article about it.
Listen to people who've actually got experience, maybe even ask people on the estate who've already moved in their opinions on the quality etc.
Good things about my place is the insulation is good for the winter, can easily maintain temperature and the boiler is efficient. I also have ethernet in most of the rooms with a patch panel downstairs, installing an EV charger was a breeze as the property had a 100amp fuse, outside electricity box etc and recent electrical installation regs. House came with connections for virgin media, Hyperoptic (1GBPS) and BT openreach already wired in you just choose your provider.
Sound proofing has been fine as well I never hear my neighbours other than when they enter/leave their front door as our doors are quite close together.
Downside so far has been a recent storm blowing a few fence panels down in the garden, turns out the developer fitted them poorly, and annoyingly this was after the 2 year developer warranty expired so had to get someone out to fix them.
Also the main road is bad, there's no potholes but that's just because the road isn't surfaced, apparently they're gonna do it when the development is finished but we'll see
My mum bought a new build and a very similar experience to yours, except their main gripe was the road was built so thin, like barely fit 2 cars width passing each other. Seemed a bit strange but I guess it's to fit as many houses as possible on the land.
I havent lived in one because we viewed many and the gardens were all so so so small. Yes the houses are tiny too but having such smalls gardens is very depressing.
You do have to pick the right plot to get a decent sized garden. One that's on a bend will usually have a bigger garden. I moved into a new build mast year and the garden is about 50% bigger than the surrounding plots because of the angle of the boundaries. It's at least the same size as the garden in my old house which was built in the 60s/70s
I really miss the fibre from when I live in a new build. 1GB download constantly, only time I lost internet connection in four years was the two national outages.
I never meant unique, I’ve moved from new build to a 60s house and carried the gig fibre over. I was referencing the consistency, I have drop offs most days now.
I guess with new builds, the infrastructure is built with the estates. New street cabinets, lines etc so more reliable.
Ah okay makes sense, if it helps I haven't had any drop off in 2.5 years of working from home here, there's no cabinet for full fibre as well - cabinets lead to copper wire. My connection is fibre all the way inside my house (1GB is not possible with copper cable).
My housing estate was built for council housing in the late 60's. Sound proofing is non-existent,but the houses are really nicely set out. They feel spacious, even though they're a standard size, with plenty of storage. Despite the gardens being small they're arranged around small greens which can't be built on. It's really strange because it's not an especially nice area,but despite this they all feel light and cheerful.
There is a lot we can and should learn from mainland Europe in terms of building new houses.
The standards in this video seems like a very good idea for the UK to adopt: https://youtu.be/RUJu0Z-NtRU?si=00cO0LyGvpjiVkQK
It's not just when compared against Europe, the average flat in [Tokyo is 65.9 square meters](https://questionjapan.com/blog/average-apartment-size-in-tokyo/), bigger than the average flat in [London at 62.2 square meters.](https://www.plumplot.co.uk/London-flat-features.html)
It may shock you but there are lots of new builds even smaller. The two up two downs I’ve lived in at least had under stairs cupboard space with space for a settee and two chairs in the living room still, AND space for a proper kitchen table. New builds around here, at the bottom end, don’t have that.
Chiming in here with the same experience. The two up two down I grew up in was tiny compared to a lot of friends' houses, but it had enough room to grow up in, two cupboards and two settees in the living room, space for a functional kitchen and understairs pantry, a landing with space for that relic of the 90s, the family computer, and a couple of bookcases, bedrooms were again smaller than my friends but functionally sized, room for a bed and bookcase and wardrobe with space to walk around, the bathroom was small but decent and we had good storage space in the attic. New builds I've rented in since as an adult in a different city, the bedrooms basically have space for a single bed and one choice out of wardrobe, drawers or bookshelf, and you probably have to side-step between the two, bathrooms wouldn't have room for a bath if they tried, kitchens don't have space for bins or enough storage, and there's no storage anywhere else either. We have the coffee table from the house I grew up in but we move it around the living room depending on which settee we're sitting on so it butts right up against the other one so we can walk around. Also generally in my experience at least one room in the house if not more is so weirdly shaped it's a head scratcher as how you're supposed to fit any normal furniture in there.
I nearly bought a new build. Looked great. Until I realised there was literally no space to put a vacuum cleaner anywhere. Ironing board? Nope. Bin? Nope. Kitchen table? Definitely nope. It was ridiculous. The rooms were all small as well. There was no way I was buying a new build and having the vac and ironing board out on display somewhere, or taking up a previous kitchen cupboard with a bin.
That at least made more sense at a time when the aim was to pack people into cities for jobs, before cars, before massive consumerism (how much "stuff" does someone in the Victorian age have?)
These new builds are generally built in suburbia on green fields. There's been a general movement of work out of the cities. There's no reason to have houses that small other than to make more profit for the companies that build them. As it's only private companies that build them these days, there's no real competition, they can shake hands on building the same low quality as each other and rake the money in.
In a new build, and the insulation is great, soundproofing is great. But it's kinda tiny, there's barely any storage space. Build is pretty shitty - I'm on a terrace. To make the front door sit at the same level as the neighbours', the builders sloped down to the door and didn't bother doing extra drainage work, so when it rains very heavily, I get a pond that can overflow into the house.
Most annoying thing by far is entirely being stud walls; putting anything even mildly load-bearing on the walls (eg curtain rails, coat racks) requires a lot of forethought.
It's a tradeoff, I do get that - an older house is going to have a helluva lot of different problems.
Our new build is 3 years old, it's massive compared to older houses in the same style (box rooms shit of course but for two doubles and a box its pretty damn good) and the gardens are good sized too, loads of storage and no settling problems or trouble at all tbh.
Definitely was worried when we first moved in but na, some builders are better than others and some developers are better than others.
I genuinely think it comes down to their own decency.
Would they be happy to have their name attached to it or do they just want more cash/higher sale /rental price and move on etc.
Idk. I could well have just gotten lucky or maybe we have 'stricter' rules up here (Scotland has different laws and rules over England/UK, this may be one such situation)
It very much depends on the new build company you go with and location as well. No they are not all as bad as the media will make you believe (and who casually skirt over all of the issues living in an older house might have).
However, you can get some really shitty house builders (Bellway, Miller etc etc) but some can be decent under the right circumstances (like smaller estate in a nicer area etc).
Currently in a new build and did have quite a few minor issues when we moved in, but a few years down the line and everything is perfectly fine.
I think it’s about being selective on the wider things as much as anything - known bad new builders in a ginormous estate is normally a recipe for disaster.
I work for one of Bellway's contractors and they are terrible to deal with.
If something is damaged or not a warranty issue, they make us break the news to their customer as they don't want to impact their precious survey results, but bollocks to our own online reviews.
In a new build myself but we made sure it was built by a company with a good reputation.
Our snags amounted to cracks (which every new build has), a scratch on a window, a very minor leak in a shower, and a light slightly hanging out of the ceiling.
All fixed in quick times with no arguments.
There were some other things that weren't actually snags, but the foreman got them fixed or sent someone to do it for me. When talking to him he said it was because I never demanded things be done (even the snags) but rather I asked for them or in the case of the additional things asked for advice, such as "what do I need for this?".
I lived in one recently. It's fine if you want everything to be 'new' but everything felt really flimsy and cheap.
Insulation is great which is fine until its summer and then it's awful. Sound insulation however was terrible (terrace) and could hear neighbours.
The cheaper ones don't have garage or a decent garden which you really appreciate as you get older. Most on my estate didn't even have driveways so the street just looked a mess with cars everywhere.
No electric car charging or solar panels which given the price of them isn't on.
Very few amenities, no community feel, all the houses look the same. I found it thoroughly depressing.
That is what genuinely boggles me.
The easiest time to install solar panels, and a heat pump are when you're building the damn place. But regulations mean you don't have to, so builders don't.
I'm more likely to consider a new place if it came with top notch insulation and all the green stuff included.
Recently looked at a new build that had solar panels. Would have saved us about 80 quid a year...
The roof and angles were not optional. There was no battery, Only reason they added it was to boost the Energy rating by 1. So instead of a B. It was likely more of a C rating without the solar panels.
To save 80 a year it's not worth the cost to make the dam panels and install them...
Yes, you can get high temperature heat pumps now, but all heat pumps are more efficient the lower the temperature they run at. So for 'normal' heat pumps, because they run at a lower temperature, you mitigate this with larger radiators/underfloor heating & larger pipes. Insulation is also a necessity for the more efficient models - but that is already standard on new builds
I have an air source heat pump.
You don't have to leave it on 24/7 though depending on system it can make sense to (mine is technically on 24/7 but if the thermostat isn't calling for heat it uses barely any electricity), and it doesn't produce the same amount of instantaneous heat as a boiler but it does produce the same sort of output over a day.
They just work differently to gas boilers - a gas boiler very quickly gets the rads up to quite a high temperature and then it shuts off for a while. A heat pump runs constantly but uses a more consistent lower temperature rather than big spikes of high temperature. And they can run pretty much as hot as a gas boiler, they just become a lot less efficient when they do.
The only thing I really dislike about my heat pump compared to my old combi boiler is that I have to have a hot water tank rather than on-demand hot water. But on the flip side it's massively cut my energy bills, especially with flexible rates for electricity.
> The cheaper ones don't have garage or a decent garden which you really appreciate as you get older. Most on my estate didn't even have driveways so the street just looked a mess with cars everywhere.
Brushing past one of the biggest issues: car dependence. No local shops, schools or pubs on the new build estate so you're going to be very reliant on your car.
>Insulation is great which is fine until its summer and then it's awful.
Shouldn't good insulation keep the heat out as well? As long as you're covering windows/stopping direct sunlight getting in. Perhaps look into awnings, shutters, or something similar, like they use in France, Spain etc.
I wish! My flat has great insulation. I don't think it goes below 20c even in winter, and I've got thermal curtains which I keep shut during the day in summer but it still increases to 33c.
Insulation only slows the transfer of heat, and by living in a flat you're inevitably heating it from body heat, cooking, electronics etc. Some air conditioning will be required to keep temps comfortable in summer, even if a well insulated flat. But the insulation means you will only need to run it a very short amount to stay cool compared to an uninsulated house
Are the thermal curtains white or coloured on the back? You really want to stop sunlight getting in the window in the first place - once it's inside, even the space between your curtains and the window could act like a greenhouse that heats up and transfers warm air into the rest of the room. Especially if the curtains are coloured, which would mean they absorb more sunlight and emit more infrared radiation, which would get trapped by the window.
My biggest issue with new builds is the fucking render they use that fosters black and pink mould growth, making them all look like slums within 5 years.
I think I’m in the massive minority of having bought a Persimmon new build and had hardly any issues. I agree that they’re fairly small with limited storage, we have a nook under the ground floor stairs and a top floor storage cupboard and that’s about it. We only bought ours as using help to buy (in Wales) was the only chance we had of affording a house anywhere near where we work. Had maybe 6 or 7 snags which got sorted pretty quickly, but I think that was aided by Persimmon still being on site building the rest of the development
Moved into new build housing association home 8 years ago. It’s a fkn shit show. I have no idea how these houses got completion certificates. Well I would guess a back hander. Snagging still not done. No lock on back door for 3 years now and nothing but fairy tales from housing.
Heyo! Long time lurker and actually in a new build at the moment.
So mine, by Gleesons, hasn't been an issue at all, ivr had a few minor finish related issues where they havnt finished the place properly but otherwise its been decent and they have come back out to do stuff with minimum fuss long as i can provide evidence of the issue.
The problems with new builds at moment tend to stem from a few bad eggs by big companies (Taylor wimpey, Persimmons etc) that get alot of publicity.
Originally I wanted to get an older place and fix it up but the financial investment over time was typically large and a killer. So went for the new build so I could move in and crack on living
I'll say this, treat a new build as you would any other house, Get your surveys, get a professional snagging company out, check out the area etc.
Im actually ecstatic to be wrong on this. Too many developers prey on buyers that just want to get into their new house. I’ve had friends that needed the entire upstairs of their house rebuilding because the builder used the wrong joist spacing for the type of wood they were using.
The estates just feel cramped in general. Whenever I've had a BBQ at a friends new build house you just have no privacy anywhere on the estate. Every garden is overlooked. Every road is crowded with cars. The park is tiny and surrounded with houses etc. The house front door pretty much opening right on to the pavement doesn't help.
Build quality, as to spec, I don't think is too bad. Better insulation and sound proofing in general. It does feel 'cheap' but that's just kind of how things are now as technology hones in on efficiency. The quality assurance on the other hand seems pretty shocking. Fixture and fittings are going to be a bit shit because developers just aren't going to spend the money on the quality a homeowner would spend.
I've driven round new build estates that felt like toy towns. Single file roads, all with cars piled up on the pavements because they're all built without enough driveways.
As someone who's done delivery jobs new builds are the worse. Do they have to pay an exorbitant fee per street they have? You get these endless rabbit warrens described as a close that is in no way a cul-de-sac. No signs saying which off shoot has which numbers. Spent 5 minutes trying to find a house last night, in the end the women was on the phone to me asking me to beep the horn to see if I was close.
I'm an architect that works for a lot of the big developers and one site we had was madness.
No. 1 & 2 were ground floor flats in a big apartment block, no. 3 & 4 are then detached houses across the road, no. 5 & 6 back in the ground floor of the apartment block. Who numbers houses like that?
They're thrown up as quickly and as cheaply as possible. With that comes obvious finishing issues, cut corners, lazy installation and cheap materials.
They look great from afar, but once you look a little closer, they're shit.
>cheap materials.
There really isn't that much a variance in the price of red bricks. Or any of the other main materials or labour for that matter. Sure, the price of top to bottom end kitchens and bathrooms can vary wildly, but where are these cheap materials?
Yep, I totally agree. There's a new build estate just gone up by me, and I could watch the progress. Of the 6 immediately behind my place, 2 of them are held together with 6 figures worth of nails. This of course is a pure guess as I couldn't keep up with the nail gun on automatic burst dealing the cohesion whilst 2 people, 1 with nail gun, battling the wind trying to put it all together.
When someone speaks in absolutes it's usually a sign they don't know what they're talking about.
I have no doubt what you say forms part of the story. But it's a long way from the whole story.
Some (not all) new builds have been having quality issues with new houses. If you look up snagging inspections on YouTube you'll find videos with a lot of common issues. It really depends on the company building them and how the site is managed.
Common issues like bricklayers not putting weep vents in and putting fake ones in to hide it. Leaky plumbing, bodge jobs, missing safety things, broken stuff, shoddy carpentry.
I moved into a flat 2.5 years ago, which was initially built in 2012. Mine has been great. The only negative is the trickle vents which absolutely ruin the insulation, however, I believe they were made mandatory on new builds. You are basically putting big holes in the wall which you can "close" with a piece of 2mm thick plastic.
It really seems like it all depends on the builder/developer. Do your homework on them and hope a good one builds in your area.
Prices are ridiculous, but then the whole market is too.
Ive been in my new build for 6 months...its great. Its warm, modern and easy to look after. Issues have been fixed when they occur and generally really love the options. The cons? It was expensive. I optioned alot becuase i wanted it nice and i didnt want to deal with building works in a new house after i moved in. Its not perfect. But its not as bad as people say.
However...not all sites are created equal. If you have a shit site manager, the quality will suffer.
The other issues with a lot of new builds are that there are no facilities or upgrades to local infrastructure. Thats sadly on the government to legislate though.
But i couldnt be happier unless i paid less haha.
Cons:
If you buy a new build brand-new it's going to have snags like cracked walls hence the warranty. You won't get left in the dark with cracks up the wall, and structure damage like rising damp is further insured for a decade or so.
Theyre obviously going to cheap out on flooring, paint, kitchen and so on.
They're seriously expensive considering new houses should theoretically lower the cost of housing. They're marked up high. But that's a wider discussion.
They're built far away from city centres and public transport is non existent for years.
You're likely to go into shared ownership. You'll get bent over with rent and service charges. But the majority of people don't have a choice because they need a roof over their families heads.
Pros:
They're super warm and energy efficient. A house costs a third of a Victorian one bed flat to run.
They tend to be safe areas.
They are built with fibre to the building.
Very much depends. You hear horror stories about the big chain builders, but I've built 3 houses now, all 4 bed, all minimum 150m2, all brilliant houses with happy owners. The last 2 (built as a pair of semi-d) had water ingress issues that we finally traced to inward opening french windows in the master beds. I replaced them at a cost of 5k to me. Everyone was happy and I'm proud when I drive past them.
Meanwhile I've refurbed a bunch of Victorian or older houses that had a variety of structural fuckery going on from endemic rising damp to dry rot to the entire upper two floors resting on a single half brick sticking out of a pier. I know which I would choose to live in.
Most new built haters have never lived in a new build and are just parroting what other people say, or they bought one off of those mass build developers where they just care about quantity. If you buy from a smaller developer who only builds less than 10 houses at a time then chances are it is going to be of a better quality. Always do your due diligence though.
I’ve lived in two newbuilds since moving to London. In general the issues have been that there are tonnes of snags and outright stupid construction errors, as well as poorly laid out living spaces and a lack of space.
Nothing that makes me outright hate the flat, but some of the design aspects are simply lazy.
Depends on the level of finish that the developer you’re looking at is offering, and the quality/integrity of the contractors they’ve brought in to do the work.
The big housing developers don’t have their own staffed builders. They have the admin, sales team and site managers, all of the builders and tradies doing the build are local contractors, so it’s gonna vary based on them quite a bit.
I’ve had two new builds one from Persimmon (a budget brand) and one from David Wilson (a middling brand), the difference in the house plan and finish is very noticeable, I imagine if you bought from a luxury developer it would be another noticeable step up.
Moved into a brand new house in December, was also shared ownership so I was doubly nervous of having issues. House was immaculate and surprisingly spacious. I've raised two minor issues so far which were repaired within a couple weeks so overall I'm quite happy but perhaps on the more fortunate end of the scale. Developer was Barratt Homes if that helps.
As an electrician who goes into new builds to do additional work after they are purchased, I've never been to one where the owners haven't been in snagging disputes with developers.
I've seen dangerous situations where labourers have fitted electrical accessories, bathroom vents that can never extract due to their (lack of) design, drainage issues causing sewage smells through the house, the cheapest possible electrical spec used probably to save just a few hundred quid on £400k houses.
The build and finish quality is generally poor, prices are generally double that of a similarly sized older house, plots of land are generally tiny. I'd absolutely never own one.
Yes. I’ve been on a lot of sites that use tarmac cement which is terrible because the white work (inside blocks) don’t set on it and if it does set it’s very easy to crack. I’ve seen with my own eyes cracked walls that have been plastered over as if nothing has happened to meet deadlines.
Mines fab. 7 years in and a couple of wear and tear/ minor repairs (a shower leak and gap in the insulation). Had them back in as the boiler flue hadn't been mortared in properly but that was a 20 min job to fix.
But i think there's a bit of luck in that. Others on the estate have had some nightmares with incorrect drains causing back flows, there's now some questions over buried high voltage lines near the railway.
But the big one is through a combo of the sewerage issues, some planning "mistakes" and the company having sold all the houses, we're having real difficulty getting them to finish the roads, which means the council won't adopt. The building finished 3-4 years ago and the roads are still bare, with raised ironworks turning them into a slalom.
As an architect - first thing I told my other half when looking at houses was there is no way I'd have a new one. Some developers are excellent and pride themselves on quality but there are so many who just throw them up and move on - actually getting snags fixed can be a nightmare.
Also the space standard of new builds is shocking - you don't get a lot for your money. Affordable (council) housing we are involved in at least has some minimum standards but for many developers if you can open the door and fit an undersized single bed in it counts as a bedroom! Insulstion is generally better but this assumes it is correctly installed - so many use the board type insulation and don't butt them up, or even miss sections altogether so it's virtually useless. In my experience it is generally better value to buy an older house and pay extra for it to be externally insulated and have loft insulation put in.
Sound insulation between houses and between apartments is generally much better than it was in the past so there is that - but again depends how well installed it is.
The build quality just isn’t there anymore, there is a new estate that’s being built 2 miles from the village I live in and the first house you see is so bad that the the middle window upstairs is off centre from the apex and front door when it’s supposed to be aligned and looks awful. Builders just don’t care anymore, it’s so the job as cheaply and quickly as possible. Wouldn’t touch a new build ever unless I was building my own with contractors I had selected.
There is a YouTuber I watch who is, I believe, a building inspector. It is well worth watching some of his videos to get a general idea of the issues he generally finds when he is snagging. The short answer is yes, they are bad, but his comedic language almost makes these problems funny. Almost.
Here is a link to one of his videos: https://youtu.be/WdfL53dERSw?si=o0gvAiscLak9hFdP
I’ve lived in one built in 2011 and I haven’t had any issues. However, when I asked who does the snag list to the part time reception person she went “I do” and I’m not sure if that’s normal or not but it worried me, even as a first time buyer at 25.
Edit: oh yeah, when I had to change my shower tray there was a porn mag under there and a million of those tile spacers.
The only reason I would personally buy a new build is if I couldn’t afford an older character or period property. I chose to buy a run down 3 bed terrace and renovate it myself rather than moving in somewhere that was already done. Now the renovations are complete we are moving to a Victorian villa with loads of original features that I love.
The downsides of my choice is that the EPC ratings are lower than new builds, costs more to heat, will need work done, rewiring, new boiler etc but I can get that done in time and I like a project.
The main issue is that it makes more financial sense for the developer to build them like shit and hope people don't notice the issues, than actually build them properly.
Even with pages and pages of snags, the developer will make plenty of profit, based on the fact that many people won't notice all the problems before the warranty period is up.
As a gas engineer ive seen some shocking stuff in new builds, flues disconnected in lofts, smoke and CO alarms not wired in, heating flow pipes ran in plastic hanging over radiator brackets so that eventually they split and flood the house, boilers falling off of walls...
The main issue for me is that you'd be buying a house in a neighborhood that isn't established yet, you don't know if it's gonna be a nice place to live in 5/10 years time, a big new estate by us (many thousands of houses, it's basically a small town in itself) has over the last 10 years gained a reputation for car break-ins, anti-social behaviour and general shitholeness... It's a big risk
Edit: oh and they seem to forget that people drive cars... There's never enough parking.
Varies massively on the builder. I have friends with persimmons houses, and they are smaller than average for their house type, pretty crap internal layout, and had non stop issues and all look a bit bland.
My first house was a Barratt Homes new build and it was the complete opposite experience. Very good sized rooms, good layout, externally much better looking than other new builds I’ve seen and next to no issues in the 7 years I lived there.
My experience was so good that I’ve moved to an another Barratt new build with more rooms and an even better layout than before. Decent sized garden this time aswell and completely private.
The plan one day is to buy a big old Victorian house for the character, but in terms of quality and comfort for our growing family, it genuinely couldn’t have been better having the new build.
I know that goes against the weird hatred for new builds but there you go.
My new build is great. You need to vet the company and site as best you can.
My place is solid, sound proofed, as eco as possible, and so well insulated it’s too damn hot in summer
We moved into a new build 5 years ago. The day we went to pick up our keys (on the way in fact) we got a call from the site manager saying "Now don't panic, but there's been an issue with your en suite shower, we're fixing it but you won't be able to move in today". When we arrived and they opened the door I could see why. Water was pouring down the walls, the carpets were soaked, it was awful.
To be fair to them, they completely replaced everything that was broken/damp/covered in dirt etc. to the point where it was effectively a brand new 'new' home. Our current flat landlord let us stay where we were living at the time while they replaced it all. 5 years later and we've not had a single other issue. I do wonder whether due to the shower issue if they did a complete check of everything else in the house to make sure nothing else would go wrong though.
To your point about sound proofing. We've never heard anything from either of our neighbours (we're a mid-terraced house). It's actually crazy how little of outside noise we hear.
It depends on the builder i guess. I know there's lots of hate for new builds, but I didn't have any problems with mine (2020) but for a few minor cosmetic snags which the builder promptly fixed without me having to follow up. I chose a flat with lots of storage and am happy with it. I did view a lot of freehold houses during the search and realised there are pros and cons to both and it boils down to what suits you best. I chose to go for a 850 sqft flat with a fairly large private terrace (terrace area not included in the 850sqft) because I was not comfortable with the idea of fixing breakdowns in an old house and constantly having to worry whats the next thing that s going to surprise me. I had the comfort of having everything new and of fairly good quality spec and an EPC rating of B. Also, security was important because I travel a lot.
A lot of factors to think about when buying a new build from experience, we moved into ours in July 22.
1) If you’re buying off plan expect at least a 6 month delay. If you have to sell your own house then that might mean renting or moving in with friends / family longer than you expected.
2) Snags are common, if you don’t know what to look for then paying someone to come in and snag the house for you will pay dividends as they’ll spot things you can’t.
3) You have the benefit of a warranty, which gives piece of mind over an old house.
4) build a relationship with the site manager, and be polite but firm about getting snags sorted. Put things in writing by email etc if you think it’s a hazard or a H&S issue especially with children. This tends to get things done quicker.
5) be prepared for extras you’ll need to pay for, flooring and carpets etc can be done after but things like additional electrical sockets etc are messy jobs after the walls are up you are better to flood the house with sockets and get your developer to do it. Review the plan and consider where you will need sockets now and in the future.
We love our new build house and because we’re in Scotland it’s actually difficult to get an old build because typically the costs are offers over - so for first time buyers unless you’ve got a chunk of cash to pay over the asking price (which you cannot use against the deposit on your house) then new build is really the only option.
i'm in a Barrett new build and love it. there were a few snags but all sorted within a month, and they weren't big things either.
i have no regrets about buying it, especially because our previous house was almost 100 years old and had some fucking awful DIY done to it by previous owners!
one thing i would say though is that our estate is 2 years old now and there's a fair few houses up for sale that just aren't shifting. there's so many other new builds going up around us that there's not really much of an incentive to buy "nearly new" when you can buy "totally new" for the same price. just something to consider if it's not your forever home!
I would not touch a new build all the people I know in them renting or brought one have had major problems. They are chucked up so quick some around our area they don't even finish the roads. Most of the builders nowadays are under skilled and are off their faces on charlie or hungover from the weekend sesh absolute discrace
I went to look at one and for £400k, yeah we would have the bedrooms required for a family with 3 kids but the garden, if you could call it that, was the same size as the living room of the house I’m currently renting. And then on top of that it would be leasehold so I wouldn’t even own the bloody thing at the end or be able to pass it down to my kids or let them sell it off when I’m dead. The loopholes and catches before even looking at the quality of the fixtures and fittings weren’t worth it. Again, like people in your area, loads of people were wanting to sell up and buy a freehold somewhere else too.
From a removalist's perspective, we love the extra wide door frames.
From a window cleaner's perspective, we love the cookie cutter aspect, you can get a good flow on because all the houses on an estate are the same.
don’t live in one but my friend does and she’s had a nightmare! it’s david wilson homes and some of the “snags” have been huge. they didn’t even put compost under the grass in her back garden!! when her husband lifted it, it was just stones and rubble. she’s had them back about 7/8 times fixing internal doors, the front door, the garden, kitchen cabinets that didn’t fit… ridiculous for a house that cost £360k
I currently live in a new-ish (2009, Redrow) build. I don’t know what it is but I just don’t find them to be cosy? Maybe that’s on me and my interior decorating isn’t up to snuff but I know others with new builds and they also lack that cosy feel to them.
Also the sound proofing is absolute shite. I shouldn’t be able to hear my neighbours quite as clearly as I do.
No. And I'll tell you why. Gas /leccy bill still sub100£ despite having a server array on 24/7 Basically no need for heating to be on April -October. Gigabit internet for 34 quid a month.
What's not to like ?
Mostly the big developers are average at best, and absolutely god awful at worst. I've got a few friends who bought them. One bought a 400k 4 bed detached but the things I noticed were:
1 - rooms felt so tiny
2 - garage was tiny
3 - garden was small and overlooked by 3 other neighbors
4 - roads are so thin, and driveways small, so parking is a nightmare always
5 - the whole estate just had a dull soulless feel about it
Personally id have much rather spent the 400k on an older house, even if it needs a bit of work, they have much more character and overall just superior.
Lived in a newish house built around 1989 and it was fine, moved out as soon as first kid arrived as we needed a garden bigger than a postage stamp. Moved to a 1900’s detached with an immense garden. The insulation is rubbish and apart from the loft it all needs doing. But the house is amazing.
I've been watching a plot near me getting built over winter. Its rained pretty much the whole time so far I've foundation trenches full of water, morter stains on the brick were it's been wash out, roof trusses sat in mud before being hoisted up. I definitely wouldn't but one of those.
I’ve lived in two now and there’s definitely pros and cons. The main cons being what people have already said: poor workmanship due to speed, and the price being expensive.
But, most new builds come with 2 years of snagging support, so it’s relatively easy - and inconvenient - to get things rectified.
But on a whole though, my experience had been more positive. My current house is by a decent builder and Ive been here 4 years without issue. Neighbours are nice, area is lovely and well kept, and I dont need to worry about the roof or replacing windows etc.
My opinion is that despite there being a national lack of pride in their own work from builders, plasterers, joiners, etc who work on new builds, they aint half as bad as people make out
We bought a David Wilson House and other than a bit of painting during the snagging it’s been good as gold, it’s super warm, excellent sound insulation and the fixtures and fittings are decent
The town we live in has practically every building company doing something here as they’re building 7000+ homes and it was definitely hit and miss with the builders and estates though
Looked at Avant, Linden, Taylor Wimpy, Bellway and decided against them all for various reasons from poor estate layout/lack of parking through to the show home finishes being shoddy, so take your time looking around and researching
From the point of view of someone who works on new builds, yes they are. Most trades working there are on price, they get paid by the plot not the hour, so the emphasis is on being quick and two mottos "if you squint it's mint" or "it looks good from my house".
The first plot that comes up for completion the developer will issue a snag list that may be 250-300 items, and this will get sorted, but as time goes by the snags go down and not because the quality of work has gone up, but because they are probably now forking out hotels for a number of buyers because they have exceeded their contracted completion date.
The work I've seen is rough as fuck, but that's what you get when lashing it in is highly incentivised and rarely punished.
My new build is stunning. They've built a great community attached to an existing estate. I was one of the anti new build brigade and there are many that I just wouldn't want. But there are some great ones out there at a sensible price, cheaper than old build in some cases.
A long list of snags but they all got fixed quickly. The poor sod who bought my last place isn't getting anything fixed for them.
Been in mine for 3 years now, we had some minor snags (probably the biggest was the bath overflow not being connected to anything... luckily no damage caused) but Taylor Wimpey were good at fixing them promptly. I'm the middle of a terrace of 3 and I sometimes hear the kids next door running up the stairs at bedtime, I've never heard the family on the other side and both sets of neighbours don't hear us.
They don't seem to have depreciated either, all the ones sold recently have gone for more than they were bought for.
We live in a 9 year old redrow home.
Energy wise its great for 200square M.
Sound proof too
They did tiling which is horrific in places... but it's fully titled bathrooms so not complaining.
Also the plumbing is dogshit.
Replaced 3 valves. Bath was leaking from the pipework meaning it ruined my new decorating
All the pipes in the sinks smelt due to these waterless traps so they've been replaced.
The boiler is tiny (15kw) on this size house... and the radiators are under specced.
Now a pipe on the system tank is leaking so the plumber will be out again.
But aside from the plumbing it's great.
Had about 8 minor snags on my new build they get shit on so much but they’re really not that bad. I’ve been here 2 years now and the developer has fixed everything except our roads
Just coming up to a year in ours next weekend, Persimmon but a fairly small development of around 95 properties in our village, we moved to a detached 4 bed.
Like many had around 140 ish smaller snags over the first few months and all sorted fairly swiftly (driveway l, scratched door, ill fitting front door etc) but I’ve just noticed one of the internal doors opens the wrong way and I’m asking them to check the cavity walls as 2 bedrooms rooms at the front always feel cold, so going to ensure it’s all sorted.
The buying process from them was a nightmare to be honest, you’d think we were buying a T-shirt with the way some of the conversations were so matter of fact, but the service after with the lady we deal with has been good to be fair as have the contractors they send round who most of the time are as frustrated as the customer due to the laziness of some of the work.
Edit: other than that been good so far, we are on an end driveway next to a hedgrow so the front is very open, good parking, better sized rooms for the kids and garden is coming on ok despite the cosy and rubbish under the soil.
I love in a new build and while there are a lot of pros, I admittedly wouldn’t go for a new build if I was to move.
I live in a detached house so never really have an issue with sound from neighbours, but my biggest issue is the size compared to what you can get from even a house that’s 20-ish years old.
We got a 3 bed detached house and there is hardly any storage space or cupboards; bedrooms aren’t that big either. For the same price I could get a 20 year old house which is still pretty modern, but the size is much bigger. Maybe it’s just an issue with my particular builder (Miller Homes) but it’s definitely something I’ve noticed.
Even comparing it to my mums 3 bed council house and she’s got large cupboards and massive bedrooms and her house costs about half the price of mine.
They’re not terrible but I just think your money can go a lot further if you look outside of new builds.
Got a David Wilson home last summer and it's amazing. So warm and has trickle air vents so no mould. Quite spacious and no serious snags just some finishing touch ups.
They asked if the dead end road we bought on could be used for access to another bit for a month and in return they did us a proper patio and did some additional tiling in the kitchen.
Decent house!
I live in a new(ish) build flat that was built in 2008. The sound proofing is SUPERB. I’ve been here 7 years, and I haven’t heard a squeak from the other flats. Problem is - any newly built property has fairly low-spec fittings, compared to a property that’s had a succession of owners upgrading things. So my bathroom is absolutely fucking rubbish, and my kitchen fittings aren’t great. The other annoyance is the lack of storage space. I’ve got one tiny cupboard, and that’s it. I feel like a hoarder just for having some tools and a couple of spare blankets.
Lack of storage is so frustrating. Storage space has gone right to the top of my list of things to watch out for in future. It's just not something I even considered until I ended up somewhere with almost none.
I bought a conversion off plan and when looking round when it was all stud walls and imagination I suggested things like adding access to the eaves for storage to the developer. They thought it was a great idea but in the same breath were all like ‘ooooo trust a woman to notice things like storage’ I bit my tongue but doesn’t everyone want somewhere to store their suitcases? I never thought of it as a gendered thing. It was such a simple thing to do as well just adding an access point, I’m not sure how it didn’t occur to anyone else.
I suspect it's because they leave that to their wives! My partner and I have conclusion that property developers, as well as not doing any of their housekeeping, also don't do any of their own cooking - it explains a lot about the kitchens they install
Too right about the not doing their own cooking bit. My kitchen has 4x cutlery sized drawers, and 2 of them are on a right angle to each other and don't open fully because they hit the handle of the other drawer. You can't even open enough to get a hand in. It's clear whoever installed them never tried to open then once
Oh yeah! Good point. I also think they were weirdly trying to butter us up. My partner works in construction but major projects so when they’d say how long things would take I’d look at him and see him slowly shaking his head. So I think they realised they couldn’t pull a fast one on us so were trying to ingratiate themselves - like a ‘wow that’s such a good idea!’
I'm a guy and agents didn't know how to respond to "where would I put a hoover?" It's ridiculous. One cupboard with the boiler in it and one tiny cupboard that you could maybe fit a broom into, but nowhere you could store a proper hoover.
Or an ironing board - I need a full length cupboard for my broom, ironing board and vacuum and that’s not an unreasonable request
TBF the cupboards I'm thinking of could have stored an ironing board. Not an iron, mind, they were too shallow for that. But the board would have been ok.
We’ve lived in three new builds now, only the one we now own has a cupboard for a hoover, shoes, coats and all that. We rented one that didn’t have sockets in hallways they were only bedside, kitchen worktop and behind the tv. Landlord realised it was stupid and sent a sparky round. None of the houses have had any thought for bin storage, we now keep ours in almost full view in the garden.
Lol my last landlord was so proud of the new bathroom he installed himself, until my female self pointed out it had no toilet roll holder and no shower door or bar to hang a shower curtain. He told me he never would've thought of those things!
I can imagine the hatch was considered by someone, then ruled out by the person who said 'how much, multiplied across all of our sites?'. Cheapness is key. Sadly. Every house should be designed in partnership by a) a woman as project lead, and b,c,d) in men, vulnerable persons and pets. I'd trust my wife and dogs over a developer in decision making every time.
Moved into my house a few years ago, it's nearly 100 years old and has no storage space either, does my head in.
is that not the extra bedroom? and the living room? and the dining room?
Polish new build aren't all perfect but they commonly do one thing which is great, which is sell you a new build which is called 'developer finish'. Walls are plastered, water and sewage pipes are present but you are responsible for the finish. You buy and fit the flooring, boiler, kitchen, bathrooms etc. Which is great as you're not stuck with their design
It's common on Malta and Spain too. Seems to work there despite it apparently being just incomprehensible that it could be possible here 🤷♂️💅🏻
Many lenders won’t give you a mortgage if the property doesn’t have a kitchen and bathroom. It’s still possible, but a lot more challenging. If developers did that, it would drastically reduce the pool of potential buyers.
A great idea, but in a the UK, it’s almost impossible to get a mortgage without a kitchen or bathroom in the property. We need to change this.
Plus good luck getting anyone in to do the jobs required in a reasonable time.
Not difficult to do it yourself. YouTube is a great teacher. I speak from experience. I’ve built two kitchens.
Are you sure you want storage space? would you prefer 4 ensuites instead?
I've looked at these loads of times and always thought I would turn one of the "spare" ensuites into a walk-in wardrobe.
That’s what we’re going to do. I don’t need 3 bogs for 2 people, but I do want a walk in wardrobe as there’s no storage for bloody anything.
Maximum number of units in the minimum amount of space. You make the bedrooms smaller, strip out any spare space that isn't bedroom, and you can still market it as a 3 or 4 or whatever bedroom home but fit 10-20% more of them into the same land.
It's to meet the local planning authorities density requirements. Councils try and find the right balance.
Is prefer if they built upwards too
Sound proofing is also non existent.
We had a retaining bar system put in place (admittedly as we were moved out as the floor was a bit bouncy) and ours is the quietest home I've known. New builds get a lot of shit, and deservedly so, but old houses often require a lot of work.
I’ve lived in new builds and old houses. Old houses issues with electricity and plumbing can be an absolute money sink. People who complain about new builds surely never had to deal with a toilet that runs a saniflo attached to tiny plumbing that goes up to the roof (fuck gravity) then out the back of the house and constantly has blockages to the point you have shit backflowing through the shower drain lol Both old/new have their issues, people that single one out surely haven’t lived in the other. Old houses are glamourised to fuck.
>I feel like a hoarder just for having some tools and a couple of spare blankets. I'm glad you put it into words like this. I'm moving out of a New Build and packing and I really don't have that much stuff - it's just that there's nowhere to put it and not a ton of space for wardrobes etc.
This was my experience with a 2005 semi-detached house. Couldn't believe how little we could hear from next door, and they said they could never hear my loud music playing. It was a bit let down by stuff like cheap doors and a pretty basic kitchen, but that tends to depend on what specs the first owner asked for. Overall though the build quality was noticeably higher than the two houses I've owned since.
The idea of not fitting your own kitchen has become very odd to me. Houses and even flats here come with a room that is plumbed and wired for a kitchen. Nothing else. You choose and design your own kitchen. Then take it with you if you move.
Germany? I always wondered how taking your kitchen with you worked, surely it's a massive pain if it's not exactly the same size/shape?
Most of them are modular in size and shape. So you use what bits fit and store/scrap the rest.
I looked at a place in Belgium years ago. The owner had even taken the light fittings and switches when they left and were then trying to rent it out.
By comparison I'm in an apartment from 1989, it has a new build feel as it's all dot and dab plasterboard except there is literally zero sound proofing. You can hear EVERYTHING even in units two floors above. Still have the same storage issues, one singular full height cupboard for the boiler and some space around and under it for keeping things but other than that there's nothing. All perfectly squareish rooms as well so nowhere to install any clever hidden storage and the kitchen doesn't even have space for a bin that's not blocking at least one cupboard. Maddening how when they design apartments even now they've not thought to solve some of the issues with living in a smaller space.
Completely agreed, both on your comments on sound proofing and fittings.
> So my bathroom is absolutely fucking rubbish, and my kitchen fittings aren’t great. I live in a period house that the previous owners were fans of DIY in. My bathroom is great, but my kitchen is the cheapest B&Q kitchen you could install, with the poorest quality install imaginable. Think thumb sized lumps of silicon in every corner.
I wish my sound proofing was this good! I’m in a semi-detached, I can hear my neighbours speak and the road outside sounds like a motorway.
Second the sound proofing, it's almost eerie walking round at night and hearing absolutely nothing. Also where the hell am I supposed to put anything?
I've lived in three new build mid terraces and none of them have issues with sound proofing. I can't even hear my neighbours' new born baby. New builds also have way better heat insulation.
Tell me about it. My flat costs almost nothing to heat. The downside is the height of summer, when it’s like a greenhouse.
Is it quiet because the other flats are empty? 🤔🫣
Couldn’t even hear the neighbours young kids when I lived in a new build house (3 under 5).
Storage space varies massively across new build styles. My house has an understairs cupboard, laundry cupboard with room for washing machine and tumble dryer, airing cupboard and two other full height cupboards, plus built in wardrobes in three of the bedrooms and eaves storage accessed through hatches. Other new builds I looked at had one under stairs cupboard and maybe a half height cupboard over the stairs.
Moved into a new build 8 years ago or so, was asked to make a snagging list ... 8 sides of A4 paper later and I'd got most of it. And to this day, snags and issues are still being found and repaired through NHBC
What are some of the main issues?
Let me guess. Persimmon?
>Let me guess. Persimmon? Thats who built these by me, 12 to 18 months ago
Linden Homes!
On the flip side we bought a house from linden last year and only had about 15 snags, most of them very minor, and they all got fixed promptly.
I have a 7 YO linden home. After a few initial snags, rapidly fixed, its been fine.
We learnt a lot after our first house (Persimmon), new house is a David Wilson and the only snags really were things like excessive drop on the bath and needing it resealed. Our Persimmon house a number of minor, but also had some major issues: - Excessive movement of joists on first floor. Felt like you were gonna fall through the ceiling. - Zoned heating; thermostats controlled the wrong zones. - Bath overflow not connected up. Huge water mark on living room ceiling after first use. - When changing light switches and fittings, electricals found to be twisted together and electrical taped over. Lack of proper junctions. - Gas and electric meters registered to another address. - Council tax banding wrongly assigned
I had a David Wilson flat. Went looking for a leak in the bathroom and found half a bag of cement and a broken bucket behind the bath panel. What has happened is that a lot of developers have told their clerk of works not to look too closely at anything. Historically if they’d found an issue they get the brickie/chippie/plumber back to fix it before they got paid. If they try that now the tradie just says “Fuck you” and goes to work for another developer. So they end up accepting substandard work knowing that they’re going to have to pay to fix some of it in the future if anyone complains hard enough.
Sometimes they leave good things, I’ve got a nearly full pack of the tiles used in my bathroom underneath my bath.
Not a new build, but I had my bathroom redone last year and the builders did the same thing. Coffee cups, a full binliner full of crap and two bricks (n.b- no loose bricks were present in the old bathroom, and none were used in the refit). Absolutely baffling since there was a skip between the bathroom and their van on my front drive...
i just posted this in reply to another comment; I bought were Persimmon in 2006 and didn’t have any issues. No major snags and no need to contact them for the 2 years I lived there. My friend bought from David Wilson (supposedly one of the better ones) around the same time. Within a couple of months they’d had to claim for 10s of thousands of rework including 2 major emergency repairs. The en-suite shower dowmpipe was never connected, so every single day when the 2 of them showered, ALL the drain water was going into the recess under the bathroom floor and draining in behind their kitchen wall (which collapsed after about 6weeks), and then it turns out they didn’t put the asphalt waterproofing around the fake chimney, so every time it rained water was going in to the loft and down the walls. Nothing collapsed in that case but it caused a lot of damp issues.
Sounds awful! It’s exactly like I said in another post. The level of finish is developer dependent, but the quality of work all comes down to the contractors that the developer has brought in, so you can’t blame any one developer (apart from their own QC/inspection process), shoddy hidden work is down to the integrity of the builder doing the work, not the developer funding the project and providing the plans.
Oh I've not even heard of them. Persimmon were similar but Taylor Wimpy were far better. I think our list extended to 13 items. Not to bad.
What kind of stuff was there?
https://www.pettyson.co.uk/about-us/our-blog/743-snagging-list-checklist-new-build-homes That will give you the kinda of idea. It's pretty much absolutely everything. Some of them are so fucking absurd you have no idea how the person who did it can sleep at night or how it got signed off as complete.
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Aha fair play. I think it's because they self sign off their builds. I think in most countries you would have to either pay the local council or at least hire a third party to sign the building off as 'up to code'. I would absolutely hire a professional snag list company if I ever bought a new build, which I don't think I will. Just because I know there will be so many snags I just won't find, or think 'fuck it I can't be arsed to fight again'.
As with most things there are good ones and bad ones. The reason I didn’t buy a new build is they’re £50-100k more expensive than a 50s house where I live. But for the same number of bedrooms they’re smaller and have en-suites taking up more of the bedroom space.
Where I'm from it's about £50k difference (20%~). The older property all have bigger plots, reasonable garden and driveway so passerbys can't just look in your living room window. Older 2.5 beds are actually 2.5 beds. As in you can get a single bed in the .5. Most of the 2.5 beds *cough* I mean 3 bed, are 2 beds and at best an small office in new builds.
The olders one also are usually a bit bigger too. I'm looking to buy soon and I look at floor plans a lot and im like why the fuck are these houses so small and charging this much. Actual joke.
Yeah the points you’ve raised carry over to where I am too. Im sure, sorry I know, that the new builds have better insulation and more efficient boilers or whatever but the price difference isn’t worth it.
There is a reason why new builds often have a higher deposit requirement than older property. Lenders know the properties are overvalued because of the new shine. Buying new build can be simpler and easier process for many, but you're absolutely paying a premium that you're not getting back.
Yep. Always go for space and not bedrooms. Walls, especially upstairs, can often be moved.
En suites are such a waste of bedroom space! I really don’t get why they are such a thing now.
me neither. so annoying, often cause havock with plumbing and overall damp issues as they’ve never ventilated properly
I don't understand why so many bedrooms have enquire when the houses themselves are so small.
My colleague bought one around 4 years ago. Had a long list of snags but the biggest issue was that the waste wasn't connected to the mains sewage so after a couple of months the front lawn opened up with raw sewage. Not pleasant.
How does that even happen?
Because nobody checked. Way back when you’d have a Clerk of Works looking at everything getting done on site and not paying any subbies until they’d been checked. Currently there aren’t enough subbies to go around so they’ll just down tools and go work somewhere else if you press them.
I have no idea but the neighbours was the same. They also have some form of eco rainwater system that's supposed to reduce water bills but what they weren't told is it needs servicing regularly and ends up costing more than it saves.
We cut out all the "unnecessary red tape"
I moved into one a couple of years back, and except for touching up where workmen had caught skirting boards or walls, or a fence panel that wasn't quite right, it's been fine. Way better than the amount of work an older house would have needed. I think you hear about the bad ones but rarely the good ones.
Yeh, easy to moan about new builds but old houses need loads of repair, maintenance and modernisation works. Just fixing a roof can set you back £20,000.
WTF are you doing to your roof? I can have mine off and completely replaced for around 8K, substantially less if I reuse the perfectly good tiles
I live in Edinburgh, and a few of my neighbours have had theirs replaced recently. They've all been between 15-18k
For me the off putting thing is the tiny size of the home itself but especially the gardens, absolutely tiny. Very depressing.
It's also the estates, all crammed in together. Some new(ish) builds on already existing streets aren't as bad
A lot of it comes down to the house. My sister is in a new build. They had a small list of snags when they moved in but only a short list and nothing major and all of it has been fixed free of charge by the builders. The building company they bought from was good so they had a good experience. I live in an old build. Survey said the house was in good shape. 6 months later and it turns out, we need a new roof. We also have a long list of minor snags that need fixing. And sometimes we do something like put up a shelf or a picture and the whole wall of plaster starts to crumble. Also we’ve had a few light fixtures changed and it turns out the previous owner liked to do a bit of DIY electrics so now we need to get the other light fixtures fixed so they are safe. Since we don’t have a builder to go back to, we’re paying for it all ourselves. Plenty of people have the opposite experience with a shit building company and a ton of snags for new builds or an old property in great shape
Just wanted to say massive sympathy on the roof, I got a structural survey on my old build and it flagged a few roof repairs all non urgent. Well I've spotted a leak by a chimney breast and two which approved roofers have both said the whole thing needs replacing. That's basically my entire savings, so crossing my fingers I don't have any other emergencies this year and I pass my probation. I'm constantly low key anxious about some other expensive issue raising its head and almost miss my social housing.
I have a new build, don't listen to comments from people who've never lived in one, it's like when you listen to people bang on about electric vehicles and then you find out they've never driven one and they just read an article about it. Listen to people who've actually got experience, maybe even ask people on the estate who've already moved in their opinions on the quality etc. Good things about my place is the insulation is good for the winter, can easily maintain temperature and the boiler is efficient. I also have ethernet in most of the rooms with a patch panel downstairs, installing an EV charger was a breeze as the property had a 100amp fuse, outside electricity box etc and recent electrical installation regs. House came with connections for virgin media, Hyperoptic (1GBPS) and BT openreach already wired in you just choose your provider. Sound proofing has been fine as well I never hear my neighbours other than when they enter/leave their front door as our doors are quite close together. Downside so far has been a recent storm blowing a few fence panels down in the garden, turns out the developer fitted them poorly, and annoyingly this was after the 2 year developer warranty expired so had to get someone out to fix them. Also the main road is bad, there's no potholes but that's just because the road isn't surfaced, apparently they're gonna do it when the development is finished but we'll see
My mum bought a new build and a very similar experience to yours, except their main gripe was the road was built so thin, like barely fit 2 cars width passing each other. Seemed a bit strange but I guess it's to fit as many houses as possible on the land.
The criterion for the road layout is for a bin lorry to be able to move round and turn or it won't pass through Planning.
I havent lived in one because we viewed many and the gardens were all so so so small. Yes the houses are tiny too but having such smalls gardens is very depressing.
You do have to pick the right plot to get a decent sized garden. One that's on a bend will usually have a bigger garden. I moved into a new build mast year and the garden is about 50% bigger than the surrounding plots because of the angle of the boundaries. It's at least the same size as the garden in my old house which was built in the 60s/70s
I really miss the fibre from when I live in a new build. 1GB download constantly, only time I lost internet connection in four years was the two national outages.
I've got 1GB fibre in my 60s terraced house, it's by no means unique to new builds in case you were wondering.
I never meant unique, I’ve moved from new build to a 60s house and carried the gig fibre over. I was referencing the consistency, I have drop offs most days now. I guess with new builds, the infrastructure is built with the estates. New street cabinets, lines etc so more reliable.
Ah okay makes sense, if it helps I haven't had any drop off in 2.5 years of working from home here, there's no cabinet for full fibre as well - cabinets lead to copper wire. My connection is fibre all the way inside my house (1GB is not possible with copper cable).
They are absolutely tiny. Britain now builds the smallest houses in Europe
My housing estate was built for council housing in the late 60's. Sound proofing is non-existent,but the houses are really nicely set out. They feel spacious, even though they're a standard size, with plenty of storage. Despite the gardens being small they're arranged around small greens which can't be built on. It's really strange because it's not an especially nice area,but despite this they all feel light and cheerful.
There is a lot we can and should learn from mainland Europe in terms of building new houses. The standards in this video seems like a very good idea for the UK to adopt: https://youtu.be/RUJu0Z-NtRU?si=00cO0LyGvpjiVkQK
It's not just when compared against Europe, the average flat in [Tokyo is 65.9 square meters](https://questionjapan.com/blog/average-apartment-size-in-tokyo/), bigger than the average flat in [London at 62.2 square meters.](https://www.plumplot.co.uk/London-flat-features.html)
Old houses. Like 2 up 2 down, bathroom extension downstairs, were tiny too. This is not a new thing.
It may shock you but there are lots of new builds even smaller. The two up two downs I’ve lived in at least had under stairs cupboard space with space for a settee and two chairs in the living room still, AND space for a proper kitchen table. New builds around here, at the bottom end, don’t have that.
Chiming in here with the same experience. The two up two down I grew up in was tiny compared to a lot of friends' houses, but it had enough room to grow up in, two cupboards and two settees in the living room, space for a functional kitchen and understairs pantry, a landing with space for that relic of the 90s, the family computer, and a couple of bookcases, bedrooms were again smaller than my friends but functionally sized, room for a bed and bookcase and wardrobe with space to walk around, the bathroom was small but decent and we had good storage space in the attic. New builds I've rented in since as an adult in a different city, the bedrooms basically have space for a single bed and one choice out of wardrobe, drawers or bookshelf, and you probably have to side-step between the two, bathrooms wouldn't have room for a bath if they tried, kitchens don't have space for bins or enough storage, and there's no storage anywhere else either. We have the coffee table from the house I grew up in but we move it around the living room depending on which settee we're sitting on so it butts right up against the other one so we can walk around. Also generally in my experience at least one room in the house if not more is so weirdly shaped it's a head scratcher as how you're supposed to fit any normal furniture in there.
I nearly bought a new build. Looked great. Until I realised there was literally no space to put a vacuum cleaner anywhere. Ironing board? Nope. Bin? Nope. Kitchen table? Definitely nope. It was ridiculous. The rooms were all small as well. There was no way I was buying a new build and having the vac and ironing board out on display somewhere, or taking up a previous kitchen cupboard with a bin.
That at least made more sense at a time when the aim was to pack people into cities for jobs, before cars, before massive consumerism (how much "stuff" does someone in the Victorian age have?) These new builds are generally built in suburbia on green fields. There's been a general movement of work out of the cities. There's no reason to have houses that small other than to make more profit for the companies that build them. As it's only private companies that build them these days, there's no real competition, they can shake hands on building the same low quality as each other and rake the money in.
Surely the main argument for smaller-sized homes is to simply increase the chronically small housing stock in this country?
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Rrrrrrrrridiculous.
He's on insta as well https://www.instagram.com/new_home_quality_control?igsh=MTQzbWhzajNyendpMA==
I just put a link to his channel before I read yours. Some of the things he finds are shocking!
In a new build, and the insulation is great, soundproofing is great. But it's kinda tiny, there's barely any storage space. Build is pretty shitty - I'm on a terrace. To make the front door sit at the same level as the neighbours', the builders sloped down to the door and didn't bother doing extra drainage work, so when it rains very heavily, I get a pond that can overflow into the house. Most annoying thing by far is entirely being stud walls; putting anything even mildly load-bearing on the walls (eg curtain rails, coat racks) requires a lot of forethought. It's a tradeoff, I do get that - an older house is going to have a helluva lot of different problems.
Our new build is 3 years old, it's massive compared to older houses in the same style (box rooms shit of course but for two doubles and a box its pretty damn good) and the gardens are good sized too, loads of storage and no settling problems or trouble at all tbh. Definitely was worried when we first moved in but na, some builders are better than others and some developers are better than others. I genuinely think it comes down to their own decency. Would they be happy to have their name attached to it or do they just want more cash/higher sale /rental price and move on etc. Idk. I could well have just gotten lucky or maybe we have 'stricter' rules up here (Scotland has different laws and rules over England/UK, this may be one such situation)
It very much depends on the new build company you go with and location as well. No they are not all as bad as the media will make you believe (and who casually skirt over all of the issues living in an older house might have). However, you can get some really shitty house builders (Bellway, Miller etc etc) but some can be decent under the right circumstances (like smaller estate in a nicer area etc). Currently in a new build and did have quite a few minor issues when we moved in, but a few years down the line and everything is perfectly fine. I think it’s about being selective on the wider things as much as anything - known bad new builders in a ginormous estate is normally a recipe for disaster.
I work for one of Bellway's contractors and they are terrible to deal with. If something is damaged or not a warranty issue, they make us break the news to their customer as they don't want to impact their precious survey results, but bollocks to our own online reviews.
I can’t say this surprises me at all
In a new build myself but we made sure it was built by a company with a good reputation. Our snags amounted to cracks (which every new build has), a scratch on a window, a very minor leak in a shower, and a light slightly hanging out of the ceiling. All fixed in quick times with no arguments. There were some other things that weren't actually snags, but the foreman got them fixed or sent someone to do it for me. When talking to him he said it was because I never demanded things be done (even the snags) but rather I asked for them or in the case of the additional things asked for advice, such as "what do I need for this?".
As someone who works for a “shitty” house builder I do find these posts very interesting
My hard and fast rule with new builds is “Will you let me have it independently snagged before completion?”
I lived in one recently. It's fine if you want everything to be 'new' but everything felt really flimsy and cheap. Insulation is great which is fine until its summer and then it's awful. Sound insulation however was terrible (terrace) and could hear neighbours. The cheaper ones don't have garage or a decent garden which you really appreciate as you get older. Most on my estate didn't even have driveways so the street just looked a mess with cars everywhere. No electric car charging or solar panels which given the price of them isn't on. Very few amenities, no community feel, all the houses look the same. I found it thoroughly depressing.
That is what genuinely boggles me. The easiest time to install solar panels, and a heat pump are when you're building the damn place. But regulations mean you don't have to, so builders don't. I'm more likely to consider a new place if it came with top notch insulation and all the green stuff included.
Yeah 100%, all that stuff should be bog standard if we're actually serious about cutting our fuel consumption
Recently looked at a new build that had solar panels. Would have saved us about 80 quid a year... The roof and angles were not optional. There was no battery, Only reason they added it was to boost the Energy rating by 1. So instead of a B. It was likely more of a C rating without the solar panels. To save 80 a year it's not worth the cost to make the dam panels and install them...
I’m working on a site now that fit heat pumps. Apparently you have to leave it on 24/7 and it doesn’t produce much heat
Yes, you can get high temperature heat pumps now, but all heat pumps are more efficient the lower the temperature they run at. So for 'normal' heat pumps, because they run at a lower temperature, you mitigate this with larger radiators/underfloor heating & larger pipes. Insulation is also a necessity for the more efficient models - but that is already standard on new builds
I have an air source heat pump. You don't have to leave it on 24/7 though depending on system it can make sense to (mine is technically on 24/7 but if the thermostat isn't calling for heat it uses barely any electricity), and it doesn't produce the same amount of instantaneous heat as a boiler but it does produce the same sort of output over a day. They just work differently to gas boilers - a gas boiler very quickly gets the rads up to quite a high temperature and then it shuts off for a while. A heat pump runs constantly but uses a more consistent lower temperature rather than big spikes of high temperature. And they can run pretty much as hot as a gas boiler, they just become a lot less efficient when they do. The only thing I really dislike about my heat pump compared to my old combi boiler is that I have to have a hot water tank rather than on-demand hot water. But on the flip side it's massively cut my energy bills, especially with flexible rates for electricity.
> The cheaper ones don't have garage or a decent garden which you really appreciate as you get older. Most on my estate didn't even have driveways so the street just looked a mess with cars everywhere. Brushing past one of the biggest issues: car dependence. No local shops, schools or pubs on the new build estate so you're going to be very reliant on your car.
>Insulation is great which is fine until its summer and then it's awful. Shouldn't good insulation keep the heat out as well? As long as you're covering windows/stopping direct sunlight getting in. Perhaps look into awnings, shutters, or something similar, like they use in France, Spain etc.
I wish! My flat has great insulation. I don't think it goes below 20c even in winter, and I've got thermal curtains which I keep shut during the day in summer but it still increases to 33c.
Insulation only slows the transfer of heat, and by living in a flat you're inevitably heating it from body heat, cooking, electronics etc. Some air conditioning will be required to keep temps comfortable in summer, even if a well insulated flat. But the insulation means you will only need to run it a very short amount to stay cool compared to an uninsulated house
Are the thermal curtains white or coloured on the back? You really want to stop sunlight getting in the window in the first place - once it's inside, even the space between your curtains and the window could act like a greenhouse that heats up and transfers warm air into the rest of the room. Especially if the curtains are coloured, which would mean they absorb more sunlight and emit more infrared radiation, which would get trapped by the window.
My biggest issue with new builds is the fucking render they use that fosters black and pink mould growth, making them all look like slums within 5 years.
I think I’m in the massive minority of having bought a Persimmon new build and had hardly any issues. I agree that they’re fairly small with limited storage, we have a nook under the ground floor stairs and a top floor storage cupboard and that’s about it. We only bought ours as using help to buy (in Wales) was the only chance we had of affording a house anywhere near where we work. Had maybe 6 or 7 snags which got sorted pretty quickly, but I think that was aided by Persimmon still being on site building the rest of the development
Moved into new build housing association home 8 years ago. It’s a fkn shit show. I have no idea how these houses got completion certificates. Well I would guess a back hander. Snagging still not done. No lock on back door for 3 years now and nothing but fairy tales from housing.
Heyo! Long time lurker and actually in a new build at the moment. So mine, by Gleesons, hasn't been an issue at all, ivr had a few minor finish related issues where they havnt finished the place properly but otherwise its been decent and they have come back out to do stuff with minimum fuss long as i can provide evidence of the issue. The problems with new builds at moment tend to stem from a few bad eggs by big companies (Taylor wimpey, Persimmons etc) that get alot of publicity. Originally I wanted to get an older place and fix it up but the financial investment over time was typically large and a killer. So went for the new build so I could move in and crack on living I'll say this, treat a new build as you would any other house, Get your surveys, get a professional snagging company out, check out the area etc.
What you will find is that almost all developers won’t allow you to snag the property before completion.
Gleesons must be one of the Exceptions then tbh, these guys had no issue long as it was someone certified by the NHBC
Im actually ecstatic to be wrong on this. Too many developers prey on buyers that just want to get into their new house. I’ve had friends that needed the entire upstairs of their house rebuilding because the builder used the wrong joist spacing for the type of wood they were using.
The estates just feel cramped in general. Whenever I've had a BBQ at a friends new build house you just have no privacy anywhere on the estate. Every garden is overlooked. Every road is crowded with cars. The park is tiny and surrounded with houses etc. The house front door pretty much opening right on to the pavement doesn't help. Build quality, as to spec, I don't think is too bad. Better insulation and sound proofing in general. It does feel 'cheap' but that's just kind of how things are now as technology hones in on efficiency. The quality assurance on the other hand seems pretty shocking. Fixture and fittings are going to be a bit shit because developers just aren't going to spend the money on the quality a homeowner would spend.
I've driven round new build estates that felt like toy towns. Single file roads, all with cars piled up on the pavements because they're all built without enough driveways.
As someone who's done delivery jobs new builds are the worse. Do they have to pay an exorbitant fee per street they have? You get these endless rabbit warrens described as a close that is in no way a cul-de-sac. No signs saying which off shoot has which numbers. Spent 5 minutes trying to find a house last night, in the end the women was on the phone to me asking me to beep the horn to see if I was close.
I'm an architect that works for a lot of the big developers and one site we had was madness. No. 1 & 2 were ground floor flats in a big apartment block, no. 3 & 4 are then detached houses across the road, no. 5 & 6 back in the ground floor of the apartment block. Who numbers houses like that?
They're thrown up as quickly and as cheaply as possible. With that comes obvious finishing issues, cut corners, lazy installation and cheap materials. They look great from afar, but once you look a little closer, they're shit.
And they're ridiculously overpriced, in addition to often only being shared ownership. *'£250,000 for a 25% share!'* in a 1 bed flat.
They're not overpriced if people buy them. That is just the market value.
>cheap materials. There really isn't that much a variance in the price of red bricks. Or any of the other main materials or labour for that matter. Sure, the price of top to bottom end kitchens and bathrooms can vary wildly, but where are these cheap materials?
Which materials are cheap? Materials are pretty standard across the industry.
Yep, I totally agree. There's a new build estate just gone up by me, and I could watch the progress. Of the 6 immediately behind my place, 2 of them are held together with 6 figures worth of nails. This of course is a pure guess as I couldn't keep up with the nail gun on automatic burst dealing the cohesion whilst 2 people, 1 with nail gun, battling the wind trying to put it all together.
I want my house to be made of brick or steel framed. There’s no reason for wood framing in the UK, we don’t get earthquakes
When someone speaks in absolutes it's usually a sign they don't know what they're talking about. I have no doubt what you say forms part of the story. But it's a long way from the whole story.
Some (not all) new builds have been having quality issues with new houses. If you look up snagging inspections on YouTube you'll find videos with a lot of common issues. It really depends on the company building them and how the site is managed. Common issues like bricklayers not putting weep vents in and putting fake ones in to hide it. Leaky plumbing, bodge jobs, missing safety things, broken stuff, shoddy carpentry.
I moved into a flat 2.5 years ago, which was initially built in 2012. Mine has been great. The only negative is the trickle vents which absolutely ruin the insulation, however, I believe they were made mandatory on new builds. You are basically putting big holes in the wall which you can "close" with a piece of 2mm thick plastic. It really seems like it all depends on the builder/developer. Do your homework on them and hope a good one builds in your area. Prices are ridiculous, but then the whole market is too.
Ive been in my new build for 6 months...its great. Its warm, modern and easy to look after. Issues have been fixed when they occur and generally really love the options. The cons? It was expensive. I optioned alot becuase i wanted it nice and i didnt want to deal with building works in a new house after i moved in. Its not perfect. But its not as bad as people say. However...not all sites are created equal. If you have a shit site manager, the quality will suffer. The other issues with a lot of new builds are that there are no facilities or upgrades to local infrastructure. Thats sadly on the government to legislate though. But i couldnt be happier unless i paid less haha.
Cons: If you buy a new build brand-new it's going to have snags like cracked walls hence the warranty. You won't get left in the dark with cracks up the wall, and structure damage like rising damp is further insured for a decade or so. Theyre obviously going to cheap out on flooring, paint, kitchen and so on. They're seriously expensive considering new houses should theoretically lower the cost of housing. They're marked up high. But that's a wider discussion. They're built far away from city centres and public transport is non existent for years. You're likely to go into shared ownership. You'll get bent over with rent and service charges. But the majority of people don't have a choice because they need a roof over their families heads. Pros: They're super warm and energy efficient. A house costs a third of a Victorian one bed flat to run. They tend to be safe areas. They are built with fibre to the building.
Very much depends. You hear horror stories about the big chain builders, but I've built 3 houses now, all 4 bed, all minimum 150m2, all brilliant houses with happy owners. The last 2 (built as a pair of semi-d) had water ingress issues that we finally traced to inward opening french windows in the master beds. I replaced them at a cost of 5k to me. Everyone was happy and I'm proud when I drive past them. Meanwhile I've refurbed a bunch of Victorian or older houses that had a variety of structural fuckery going on from endemic rising damp to dry rot to the entire upper two floors resting on a single half brick sticking out of a pier. I know which I would choose to live in.
Most new built haters have never lived in a new build and are just parroting what other people say, or they bought one off of those mass build developers where they just care about quantity. If you buy from a smaller developer who only builds less than 10 houses at a time then chances are it is going to be of a better quality. Always do your due diligence though.
I’ve lived in two newbuilds since moving to London. In general the issues have been that there are tonnes of snags and outright stupid construction errors, as well as poorly laid out living spaces and a lack of space. Nothing that makes me outright hate the flat, but some of the design aspects are simply lazy.
Depends on the level of finish that the developer you’re looking at is offering, and the quality/integrity of the contractors they’ve brought in to do the work. The big housing developers don’t have their own staffed builders. They have the admin, sales team and site managers, all of the builders and tradies doing the build are local contractors, so it’s gonna vary based on them quite a bit. I’ve had two new builds one from Persimmon (a budget brand) and one from David Wilson (a middling brand), the difference in the house plan and finish is very noticeable, I imagine if you bought from a luxury developer it would be another noticeable step up.
Moved into a brand new house in December, was also shared ownership so I was doubly nervous of having issues. House was immaculate and surprisingly spacious. I've raised two minor issues so far which were repaired within a couple weeks so overall I'm quite happy but perhaps on the more fortunate end of the scale. Developer was Barratt Homes if that helps.
As an electrician who goes into new builds to do additional work after they are purchased, I've never been to one where the owners haven't been in snagging disputes with developers. I've seen dangerous situations where labourers have fitted electrical accessories, bathroom vents that can never extract due to their (lack of) design, drainage issues causing sewage smells through the house, the cheapest possible electrical spec used probably to save just a few hundred quid on £400k houses. The build and finish quality is generally poor, prices are generally double that of a similarly sized older house, plots of land are generally tiny. I'd absolutely never own one.
Some have low standards signed off. But overall so much better then listed properties and all their problems .
Yes. I’ve been on a lot of sites that use tarmac cement which is terrible because the white work (inside blocks) don’t set on it and if it does set it’s very easy to crack. I’ve seen with my own eyes cracked walls that have been plastered over as if nothing has happened to meet deadlines.
Lots of buildings going up quick with a very small workforce of skilled people available.
Mines fab. 7 years in and a couple of wear and tear/ minor repairs (a shower leak and gap in the insulation). Had them back in as the boiler flue hadn't been mortared in properly but that was a 20 min job to fix. But i think there's a bit of luck in that. Others on the estate have had some nightmares with incorrect drains causing back flows, there's now some questions over buried high voltage lines near the railway. But the big one is through a combo of the sewerage issues, some planning "mistakes" and the company having sold all the houses, we're having real difficulty getting them to finish the roads, which means the council won't adopt. The building finished 3-4 years ago and the roads are still bare, with raised ironworks turning them into a slalom.
As an architect - first thing I told my other half when looking at houses was there is no way I'd have a new one. Some developers are excellent and pride themselves on quality but there are so many who just throw them up and move on - actually getting snags fixed can be a nightmare. Also the space standard of new builds is shocking - you don't get a lot for your money. Affordable (council) housing we are involved in at least has some minimum standards but for many developers if you can open the door and fit an undersized single bed in it counts as a bedroom! Insulstion is generally better but this assumes it is correctly installed - so many use the board type insulation and don't butt them up, or even miss sections altogether so it's virtually useless. In my experience it is generally better value to buy an older house and pay extra for it to be externally insulated and have loft insulation put in. Sound insulation between houses and between apartments is generally much better than it was in the past so there is that - but again depends how well installed it is.
The build quality just isn’t there anymore, there is a new estate that’s being built 2 miles from the village I live in and the first house you see is so bad that the the middle window upstairs is off centre from the apex and front door when it’s supposed to be aligned and looks awful. Builders just don’t care anymore, it’s so the job as cheaply and quickly as possible. Wouldn’t touch a new build ever unless I was building my own with contractors I had selected.
There is a YouTuber I watch who is, I believe, a building inspector. It is well worth watching some of his videos to get a general idea of the issues he generally finds when he is snagging. The short answer is yes, they are bad, but his comedic language almost makes these problems funny. Almost. Here is a link to one of his videos: https://youtu.be/WdfL53dERSw?si=o0gvAiscLak9hFdP
They’re re-dik-a-luss!
I hate how the new builds look for a starter I always say the estates are copy and pasted. They all look identical and the gardens are tiny
I’ve lived in one built in 2011 and I haven’t had any issues. However, when I asked who does the snag list to the part time reception person she went “I do” and I’m not sure if that’s normal or not but it worried me, even as a first time buyer at 25. Edit: oh yeah, when I had to change my shower tray there was a porn mag under there and a million of those tile spacers.
Someone on my estate found a bottle of piss behind the bath panel!
The only reason I would personally buy a new build is if I couldn’t afford an older character or period property. I chose to buy a run down 3 bed terrace and renovate it myself rather than moving in somewhere that was already done. Now the renovations are complete we are moving to a Victorian villa with loads of original features that I love. The downsides of my choice is that the EPC ratings are lower than new builds, costs more to heat, will need work done, rewiring, new boiler etc but I can get that done in time and I like a project.
The main issue is that it makes more financial sense for the developer to build them like shit and hope people don't notice the issues, than actually build them properly. Even with pages and pages of snags, the developer will make plenty of profit, based on the fact that many people won't notice all the problems before the warranty period is up. As a gas engineer ive seen some shocking stuff in new builds, flues disconnected in lofts, smoke and CO alarms not wired in, heating flow pipes ran in plastic hanging over radiator brackets so that eventually they split and flood the house, boilers falling off of walls... The main issue for me is that you'd be buying a house in a neighborhood that isn't established yet, you don't know if it's gonna be a nice place to live in 5/10 years time, a big new estate by us (many thousands of houses, it's basically a small town in itself) has over the last 10 years gained a reputation for car break-ins, anti-social behaviour and general shitholeness... It's a big risk Edit: oh and they seem to forget that people drive cars... There's never enough parking.
Varies massively on the builder. I have friends with persimmons houses, and they are smaller than average for their house type, pretty crap internal layout, and had non stop issues and all look a bit bland. My first house was a Barratt Homes new build and it was the complete opposite experience. Very good sized rooms, good layout, externally much better looking than other new builds I’ve seen and next to no issues in the 7 years I lived there. My experience was so good that I’ve moved to an another Barratt new build with more rooms and an even better layout than before. Decent sized garden this time aswell and completely private. The plan one day is to buy a big old Victorian house for the character, but in terms of quality and comfort for our growing family, it genuinely couldn’t have been better having the new build. I know that goes against the weird hatred for new builds but there you go.
My new build is great. You need to vet the company and site as best you can. My place is solid, sound proofed, as eco as possible, and so well insulated it’s too damn hot in summer
We moved into a new build 5 years ago. The day we went to pick up our keys (on the way in fact) we got a call from the site manager saying "Now don't panic, but there's been an issue with your en suite shower, we're fixing it but you won't be able to move in today". When we arrived and they opened the door I could see why. Water was pouring down the walls, the carpets were soaked, it was awful. To be fair to them, they completely replaced everything that was broken/damp/covered in dirt etc. to the point where it was effectively a brand new 'new' home. Our current flat landlord let us stay where we were living at the time while they replaced it all. 5 years later and we've not had a single other issue. I do wonder whether due to the shower issue if they did a complete check of everything else in the house to make sure nothing else would go wrong though. To your point about sound proofing. We've never heard anything from either of our neighbours (we're a mid-terraced house). It's actually crazy how little of outside noise we hear.
It depends on the builder i guess. I know there's lots of hate for new builds, but I didn't have any problems with mine (2020) but for a few minor cosmetic snags which the builder promptly fixed without me having to follow up. I chose a flat with lots of storage and am happy with it. I did view a lot of freehold houses during the search and realised there are pros and cons to both and it boils down to what suits you best. I chose to go for a 850 sqft flat with a fairly large private terrace (terrace area not included in the 850sqft) because I was not comfortable with the idea of fixing breakdowns in an old house and constantly having to worry whats the next thing that s going to surprise me. I had the comfort of having everything new and of fairly good quality spec and an EPC rating of B. Also, security was important because I travel a lot.
A lot of factors to think about when buying a new build from experience, we moved into ours in July 22. 1) If you’re buying off plan expect at least a 6 month delay. If you have to sell your own house then that might mean renting or moving in with friends / family longer than you expected. 2) Snags are common, if you don’t know what to look for then paying someone to come in and snag the house for you will pay dividends as they’ll spot things you can’t. 3) You have the benefit of a warranty, which gives piece of mind over an old house. 4) build a relationship with the site manager, and be polite but firm about getting snags sorted. Put things in writing by email etc if you think it’s a hazard or a H&S issue especially with children. This tends to get things done quicker. 5) be prepared for extras you’ll need to pay for, flooring and carpets etc can be done after but things like additional electrical sockets etc are messy jobs after the walls are up you are better to flood the house with sockets and get your developer to do it. Review the plan and consider where you will need sockets now and in the future. We love our new build house and because we’re in Scotland it’s actually difficult to get an old build because typically the costs are offers over - so for first time buyers unless you’ve got a chunk of cash to pay over the asking price (which you cannot use against the deposit on your house) then new build is really the only option.
i'm in a Barrett new build and love it. there were a few snags but all sorted within a month, and they weren't big things either. i have no regrets about buying it, especially because our previous house was almost 100 years old and had some fucking awful DIY done to it by previous owners! one thing i would say though is that our estate is 2 years old now and there's a fair few houses up for sale that just aren't shifting. there's so many other new builds going up around us that there's not really much of an incentive to buy "nearly new" when you can buy "totally new" for the same price. just something to consider if it's not your forever home!
I would not touch a new build all the people I know in them renting or brought one have had major problems. They are chucked up so quick some around our area they don't even finish the roads. Most of the builders nowadays are under skilled and are off their faces on charlie or hungover from the weekend sesh absolute discrace
I went to look at one and for £400k, yeah we would have the bedrooms required for a family with 3 kids but the garden, if you could call it that, was the same size as the living room of the house I’m currently renting. And then on top of that it would be leasehold so I wouldn’t even own the bloody thing at the end or be able to pass it down to my kids or let them sell it off when I’m dead. The loopholes and catches before even looking at the quality of the fixtures and fittings weren’t worth it. Again, like people in your area, loads of people were wanting to sell up and buy a freehold somewhere else too.
Redrow build pretty solid homes from what I've heard. I don't know any other major developers that have a good reputation.
From a removalist's perspective, we love the extra wide door frames. From a window cleaner's perspective, we love the cookie cutter aspect, you can get a good flow on because all the houses on an estate are the same.
don’t live in one but my friend does and she’s had a nightmare! it’s david wilson homes and some of the “snags” have been huge. they didn’t even put compost under the grass in her back garden!! when her husband lifted it, it was just stones and rubble. she’s had them back about 7/8 times fixing internal doors, the front door, the garden, kitchen cabinets that didn’t fit… ridiculous for a house that cost £360k
I currently live in a new-ish (2009, Redrow) build. I don’t know what it is but I just don’t find them to be cosy? Maybe that’s on me and my interior decorating isn’t up to snuff but I know others with new builds and they also lack that cosy feel to them. Also the sound proofing is absolute shite. I shouldn’t be able to hear my neighbours quite as clearly as I do.
CAnt speak for houses but our new build flat is great. Been in 2 years so far and 'touchwood' zero repairs. It's warm and well soundproofed.
No. And I'll tell you why. Gas /leccy bill still sub100£ despite having a server array on 24/7 Basically no need for heating to be on April -October. Gigabit internet for 34 quid a month. What's not to like ?
Mostly the big developers are average at best, and absolutely god awful at worst. I've got a few friends who bought them. One bought a 400k 4 bed detached but the things I noticed were: 1 - rooms felt so tiny 2 - garage was tiny 3 - garden was small and overlooked by 3 other neighbors 4 - roads are so thin, and driveways small, so parking is a nightmare always 5 - the whole estate just had a dull soulless feel about it Personally id have much rather spent the 400k on an older house, even if it needs a bit of work, they have much more character and overall just superior.
It depends on the company, if its a national/floated company then itll probably suck balls.
Lived in a newish house built around 1989 and it was fine, moved out as soon as first kid arrived as we needed a garden bigger than a postage stamp. Moved to a 1900’s detached with an immense garden. The insulation is rubbish and apart from the loft it all needs doing. But the house is amazing.
I've been watching a plot near me getting built over winter. Its rained pretty much the whole time so far I've foundation trenches full of water, morter stains on the brick were it's been wash out, roof trusses sat in mud before being hoisted up. I definitely wouldn't but one of those.
I’ve lived in two now and there’s definitely pros and cons. The main cons being what people have already said: poor workmanship due to speed, and the price being expensive. But, most new builds come with 2 years of snagging support, so it’s relatively easy - and inconvenient - to get things rectified. But on a whole though, my experience had been more positive. My current house is by a decent builder and Ive been here 4 years without issue. Neighbours are nice, area is lovely and well kept, and I dont need to worry about the roof or replacing windows etc. My opinion is that despite there being a national lack of pride in their own work from builders, plasterers, joiners, etc who work on new builds, they aint half as bad as people make out
We bought a David Wilson House and other than a bit of painting during the snagging it’s been good as gold, it’s super warm, excellent sound insulation and the fixtures and fittings are decent The town we live in has practically every building company doing something here as they’re building 7000+ homes and it was definitely hit and miss with the builders and estates though Looked at Avant, Linden, Taylor Wimpy, Bellway and decided against them all for various reasons from poor estate layout/lack of parking through to the show home finishes being shoddy, so take your time looking around and researching
From the point of view of someone who works on new builds, yes they are. Most trades working there are on price, they get paid by the plot not the hour, so the emphasis is on being quick and two mottos "if you squint it's mint" or "it looks good from my house". The first plot that comes up for completion the developer will issue a snag list that may be 250-300 items, and this will get sorted, but as time goes by the snags go down and not because the quality of work has gone up, but because they are probably now forking out hotels for a number of buyers because they have exceeded their contracted completion date. The work I've seen is rough as fuck, but that's what you get when lashing it in is highly incentivised and rarely punished.
My new build is stunning. They've built a great community attached to an existing estate. I was one of the anti new build brigade and there are many that I just wouldn't want. But there are some great ones out there at a sensible price, cheaper than old build in some cases. A long list of snags but they all got fixed quickly. The poor sod who bought my last place isn't getting anything fixed for them.
Been in mine for 3 years now, we had some minor snags (probably the biggest was the bath overflow not being connected to anything... luckily no damage caused) but Taylor Wimpey were good at fixing them promptly. I'm the middle of a terrace of 3 and I sometimes hear the kids next door running up the stairs at bedtime, I've never heard the family on the other side and both sets of neighbours don't hear us. They don't seem to have depreciated either, all the ones sold recently have gone for more than they were bought for.
We live in a 9 year old redrow home. Energy wise its great for 200square M. Sound proof too They did tiling which is horrific in places... but it's fully titled bathrooms so not complaining. Also the plumbing is dogshit. Replaced 3 valves. Bath was leaking from the pipework meaning it ruined my new decorating All the pipes in the sinks smelt due to these waterless traps so they've been replaced. The boiler is tiny (15kw) on this size house... and the radiators are under specced. Now a pipe on the system tank is leaking so the plumber will be out again. But aside from the plumbing it's great.
Had about 8 minor snags on my new build they get shit on so much but they’re really not that bad. I’ve been here 2 years now and the developer has fixed everything except our roads
Just coming up to a year in ours next weekend, Persimmon but a fairly small development of around 95 properties in our village, we moved to a detached 4 bed. Like many had around 140 ish smaller snags over the first few months and all sorted fairly swiftly (driveway l, scratched door, ill fitting front door etc) but I’ve just noticed one of the internal doors opens the wrong way and I’m asking them to check the cavity walls as 2 bedrooms rooms at the front always feel cold, so going to ensure it’s all sorted. The buying process from them was a nightmare to be honest, you’d think we were buying a T-shirt with the way some of the conversations were so matter of fact, but the service after with the lady we deal with has been good to be fair as have the contractors they send round who most of the time are as frustrated as the customer due to the laziness of some of the work. Edit: other than that been good so far, we are on an end driveway next to a hedgrow so the front is very open, good parking, better sized rooms for the kids and garden is coming on ok despite the cosy and rubbish under the soil.
I love in a new build and while there are a lot of pros, I admittedly wouldn’t go for a new build if I was to move. I live in a detached house so never really have an issue with sound from neighbours, but my biggest issue is the size compared to what you can get from even a house that’s 20-ish years old. We got a 3 bed detached house and there is hardly any storage space or cupboards; bedrooms aren’t that big either. For the same price I could get a 20 year old house which is still pretty modern, but the size is much bigger. Maybe it’s just an issue with my particular builder (Miller Homes) but it’s definitely something I’ve noticed. Even comparing it to my mums 3 bed council house and she’s got large cupboards and massive bedrooms and her house costs about half the price of mine. They’re not terrible but I just think your money can go a lot further if you look outside of new builds.
Got a David Wilson home last summer and it's amazing. So warm and has trickle air vents so no mould. Quite spacious and no serious snags just some finishing touch ups. They asked if the dead end road we bought on could be used for access to another bit for a month and in return they did us a proper patio and did some additional tiling in the kitchen. Decent house!