I am dismayed at the cynical attitude of builders. Many build on land they have owned for years but charge current prices.
My daughter bought a five year old house on an estate in the Southampton area for a monopoly money price. Rooms are small, fittings and fixtures are absolute rubbish. Every tap drips and to change them would mean taking wash basins off the wall.
Sewers block regularly and the boiler sounds like an aircraft taking off because it is a cheap chatty thing.
Having bought one of these drums you go to your departmental store to buy furniture. Everything is huge. Dining tables are clumsy and so heavy you cannot lift them.
If you are visiting a show house on one of the new estates it will look beautiful but measure the chairs, I am told they are made specifically for builders?

They're also tiny.

The price of the land is only one factor in building a house, with a lot of these modern builds everything is sub contracted and as such quality falls as so long as the work gets signed off and they get paid they're long gone.

Always better to buy an older house that even if it has faults will be easier to fix than some modern dogs dinner where you have more room and you can open your kitchen window the same time as your neighbour can without clashing.

Back in the early 1980s, my mum and I went to look at a show house. I happened to have a tape measure in my bag, and the "double" bedrooms had 4' wide beds in them, so they looked as though they could hold a double bed and still have a fair amount of room on either side of it. They even had smaller than standard pillows, so the pillows didn't give away the fact that the bed wasn't quite a double.

Anyone who bought one of these and rocked up with a king size bed would have felt properly cheated.

I had trouble recently finding a 500mm undercounter freezer, I thought we were going to have to refit the kitchen to accommodate a new freezer!

And a lot of new houses go upwards to three storeys. Ok if you can cope with stairs, I suppose they help to keep you fit

Speculative builders will build the smallest cheapest houses they can get away with.
It's the planning laws that should be changed to set decent minimum sizes.
Some new estates are a joke.

did your daughter not measure the rooms, or examine the fittings before buying?

And they are all built on Flood Plains these days!

Plus insurers don't want to know
Builders, and the councils who permit them to build on flood plains should then compensate for any damage due to flooding

Interesting that you post this thread, we drove past a housing estate build today near Rochester (after the Asda as you come off the m2) and I recall seeing it being built around 2008 and its still not finished!

We were talking in the car that the builders bank the land and hold it back to suit their own needs while people desperately need housing.

Lots of builders went bump at that time so perhaps its owned by a bank and if the houses are only half built by now they're worthless and will need tearing down and redoing from scratch and since they've broken soil they've got planning permission so I'd bet the banks waiting for a nice juicy offer from a developer that'll see them quids in.

http://www.countryside-properties.co...50/#tabs-Plan1

They seem to be selling them as above. I must say the sizes dont seem too bad on that example, although the exterior is well ugly.

Looks like a factory!

Caveat Emptor.

Don't like it, don't buy it. Better than whining afterwards as though it's somebody else's fault. It's not. The only person to blame is the mug who bought it.

Also, washers should help the dripping taps, without the need to remove the sink from the wall.

Tiny boxes, overlooked from all directions, built of lollysticks, tiny gardens.

I would never buy a new house.

one of my friend`s hobby is looking round show houses, i`ve accompanied her a few times, it`s the half a dozen 5 bedroom houses all cramped into a space the size of a small spar shop and a garden you can almost get a rotary line up in that amaze me.

They are not all like that!

Well 'Seacam' or other Plumbing Expert would be able to advise better than me.

But I've changed whole taps before (In my house) because the wide variety of modern Ceramic Washers makes it difficult or impossible to track them down.

And you can buy a new pair of taps from Screwfix for peanuts.

Of course then, you may have to take the sink off the wall and mess around with flexible hoses and buying Tap-Wrenches so that it is easy the next time.

Likewise. I bought a terrace house built around 1903, with an old house like mine there is regular maintenance needed, some of it very expensive. But it has character, is quiet and and, while there is no garden (just a back yard), there is a feeling of plenty of space.

New builds = Estates = tomorrows Slum. That's what they are building now.

As others have said you are far better off looking at older property with 70's early 80's being the latest year builds to look at. After that and you are just buying a matchbox slum.

They should be modern taps though, making the washers easy to obtain. Hopefully anyway.

Not all taps contain washers. Some contain cartridges. And when they go it can be cheaper to replace the taps.

I agree with that. My house was built in the late 1940's. It's spacious, has well sized back and front gardens, and the adjoining walls are thick.

As someone who bought a new build house earlier this year, I am going to try and present an alternative viewpoint.

We owned an ex 1950's council house previously, and compared to that this new house is so warm due to the fact is is insulated properly. Despite the double glazing and heating, the old house still got really cold in the winter. I honestly can't see that being a problem here.

We did initially express concern about the size. We have bought a 3 bedroom. The master bedroom is spacious, but admittedly the 2 smaller bedrooms are pretty small. There's only 2 of us so we don't actually use them as bedrooms so it's not a big problem, but I think it would be a bit tight for space if we had 2 kids each needing their own room. The kitchen and living room are decent sized and the kitchen is bigger than our old house.

Overall I think the footprint of the house is slightly larger than our old house, but there are more rooms squeezed in as there is a downstairs toilet and an en-suite as well. Apart from the (spare) bedrooms though, the size of the rooms is ok.

The downstairs toilet is an absolute godsend - I love it!

Admittedly some of the neighbours gardens are pretty small. Ours however is a lot larger due to the location of our plot. I would say that my back garden is approximately 3 times the size of my next door neighbour's garden. The back garden is a lot larger than our old house, and probably more private than our old house too.

You won't see me on the advice forum complaining that I can't get parked outside my house, as every house has parking within it's land

Overall we're very happy with the house. The council built houses of any age around here aren't really any better. and that is all I have to compare it to.

As for slums comment, I suppose it depends a lot on who lives in them.

Always one who blames the victim not the con merchant. Many buyers are 1st time buyers who have no idea of the pitfalls they can fall into. Its OK at a greater age looking back and seeing what you didn't know then and be wise after.. but when you are trying to get a mortgage solicitors working full time etc its not easy. its not even like it was years ago , much easier to buy a home or to upgrade years ago.

These property developers people pay a lot of money to people who know just the right tricks to fool the public not in the know. into parting with money.. Just like advertising, it works.

You cannot possible know each and every fault in the viewing times allowed before house purchase and even if you do notice them you get a lot of empty promises "oh don't worry we will sort that out"

We have a lot of aggro in villages from developers. they say anything to be able to build on the land no mater how much you fight them, they then get the go ahead from dodgy counsellors and the promises turn to dust.