New Home Blog

Housebuilding Prestigious “Bodgers” Awards 2015

Posted on 23/12/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

Bodge the builder – can they fix it?

Well probably yes, but they will move heaven and earth to avoid doing so. It is at this time of year that I like to produce a light-hearted article, poking fun at the general house building industry. However the increasing poor quality of new homes and the lack of any discernible after sales service mean that most new home buyers have experiences that are as far from funny as you can get.

Nevertheless, this year I am proud to announce the inaugural winners of the “BODGERS” awards. These are the awards for the very worse in everything housebuilding that I have come across over the last twelve months.

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Posted in New Homes, Snagging and Quality

Tagged awards, customer care, house builders, quality, snagging, specification, standards, taylor wimpey

Plans To Axe Red Tape – Another Gift From Government To Housebuilders

Posted on 04/12/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

A Conservative Government – the gift that keeps on giving!
Champagne corks must be popping in the boardrooms of housebuilders across the country as this Conservative Government announces yet more plans to help the industry with a “Cutting Red Tape” review.Notwithstanding the unprecedented boost that the housebuilders have already received from this Government – plc housebuilders were the biggest winners from the recent Autumn Statement after George “we are the builders” Osborne announced a raft of new changes that further support the sector in the relentless headline grabbing political pressure to ramp up UK homebuilding.

In his Autumn Statement, Osborne announced a number of measures which include plans for a £7bn house building programme, a boost to the Help to Buy scheme, with Londoners a 40% loan rather than the previously-announced 20% loan and more freedom for Local Authorities to sell off land. The main benefit being from the shared ownership scheme and the extension of Help to Buy. The big seven: Barratt, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Berkeley, Bellway, Redrow and Bovis will benefit the most from the moves.

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Posted in New Homes

Tagged help to buy, house builders, new homes, planning

Attending The APPG Inquiry Into The Quality of New Build Housing in England

Posted on 02/12/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

The All Party Parliamentary Group for “Excellence in the Built Environment” was formed in July 2010. The group is chaired by Oliver Colvile MP, with Nick Raynsford and the Earl of Lytton acting as vice-chairmen. The latest APPG Inquiry is looking at the Quality of New Build Housing in England and “examining the potential for improving every aspect of the product handed over to new home-owners.” (For details of the full committee see end of this article)

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Posted in New Homes, Snagging and Quality

Tagged APPG Inquiry Into Quality of New Homes, customer care, house builders, new homes ombudsman, NHBC, quality, snagging, specification, standards

Claiming Compensation From Housebuilders

Posted on 14/11/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

All housebuilders pay compensation eventually if it is justified!

When they say, “We don’t pay compensation” they’re lying – they all do!

Is compensation justified? Well the answer is a resounding yes for many new homebuyers that have experienced the inevitable issues with their new home. This often requiring buyers to take time off work, or use paid leave to be at home to give builder’s sub contractors access to fix fully preventable defects with their new home. The general law also compensates new build homebuyers for distress and inconvenience related to defects in their homes.

When new homebuyers bring up the subject of compensation, I can guarantee the initial response from the housebuilder, be it the sales staff, site manager or the housebuilder’s customer care department will be: “it is not our company policy to pay compensation under any circumstances”.

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Posted in New Homes, Snagging and Quality

Tagged customer care, house builders, quality, snagging, solicitors, standards

Help To Buy Helps Trigger Large Bonus Windfalls

Posted on 12/11/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

Help to Buy helps trigger large bonus windfalls for housebuilder CEOs and senior directors.
On 17 March 2014 shares in the housebuilders surged up to 6% as George Osborne announced he was extending the Help to Buy Equity Share on new homes, until 2020. The announcement came less than a year after Help to Buy first became available. It had originally been due to end next year! However the second part of Help to Buy, the UK-wide mortgage guarantee scheme, is still due to finish at the end of December 2016.

At the time the chancellor announced that an extra £6bn would be put into the English scheme, allowing a further 120,000 new homes to be built. However there is little evidence that the housebuilders are responding by building more homes despite Help to Buy “helping” them to around 35% of their sales last year.

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Posted in Help To Buy, New Homes

Tagged help to buy, house builders, persimmon, taylor wimpey

Summary Of Proposals To Ensure Better Quality New Homes.

Posted on 30/10/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

Well it was about time something was done regarding the dire quality of new homes built in the UK and the total indifference shown by the housebuilders to even begin address the thousands of defective new homes handed over to their misty-eyed customers every year. Something they have all been aware of for many years. This APPG Inquiry is a start.

Whether this latest inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment actually forces through the changes so badly required remains to be seen. At the outset, it is only an inquiry and we have had many previously including The Barker Review of Housing Supply in 2004 and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) ‘Home Building Consumer Survey’ of 2007. Yet as any UK new homebuyer will tell you, the quality of new homes has not improved. In the 2015 results of the HBF New Homes Customer Satisfaction Survey, some 93% of respondents had problems with their new home. Indeed the industry has done such a good job of normalising defective new homes that all of those surveyed actually expected to have some problems after they moved in.

The inquiry will look at the quality of UK new home building and the potential for improving every aspect of the product handed over to new home-owners.

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Posted in New Homes, Snagging and Quality

Tagged customer care, end of year figures, help to buy, house builders, new homes, new homes ombudsman, NHBC, quality, snagging, standards

New National Space Standards For New Homes Not Compulsory

Posted on 08/10/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

Thanks to successful lobbying by the HBF, it is a case of Carry On Regardless as housebuilders dodge yet another bullet, this time it is building larger ‘fit for purpose’ new homes.

As with most things that effect housebuilders, the new National Space Standards for new homes have been watered-down to such an extent that it is doubtful that any of the major housebuilders will ever be required (or forced) to design new homes that adhere to the new space standards. Not that this matters as the space standards have been set so low, that the size of the average new homes currently being built all but comply anyway!

The average family home shrinks two square metres in ten years.

Britain’s incredible shrinking new homes

Britain’s tiny ‘rabbit-hutch’ new homes are bad for your health

Unlike other aspects of the Housing Standards Review, the space standard has not been incorporated into the Building Regulations. Establishing compliance and any enforcement action will rest with the local planning authority.

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Posted in New Homes

Tagged HBF, house builders, planning, quality, specification, standards

Corbyn appoints Taylor Wimpey CEO Redfern to advise on housing

Posted on 05/10/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

Pete Redfern Taylor Wimpey CEO is Corbyn’s appointed housing tsar.

It would appear new labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has appointed Pete Redfern, chief executive of Taylor Wimpey, to lead a review of housing to help form Labour policy on the issue. Quite what housing expertise Corbyn thinks Redfern, with his background in accountancy, can bring to the table is a mystery to me. If is often said that accountants know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Redfern trained as an accountant with KPMG. He then became financial director of Rugby Cement before he joined George Wimpey in 2001. He became CEO of Taylor Wimpey in July 2007 following the merger with Taylor Woodrow.

It has emerged that Corbyn’s newly appointed housing adviser is the CEO of a British company that has been associated with tax avoidance. Mr Corbyn, you have chosen….. poorly!

Documents show housebuilders Taylor Wimpey had a Luxembourg division which it used to cut its UK tax bill – exactly the kind of scheme that Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have pledged to bring to an end.

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Posted in New Homes, Taylor Wimpey

Tagged house builders, pete redfern, taylor wimpey

The Buy-To-Let Boom Is Over

Posted on 18/09/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

The conditions are right for a ‘perfect storm’ for buy-to-let landlords. Higher taxation will reduce net rental yields, new statutory regulations will add to costs and the imminent increase in interest rates will lead to falling property prices, creating a stampede of landlords desperate to sell, forcing prices even lower.

One in ten people over 50 now own a buy-to-let property, bringing in an average “profit” of £700 a month. A third of these became a landlord during the last five years with one in seven inheriting and 7% buying a home for one of their children or grandchild to live in, according to a survey of more than 10,000 landlords by Saga Landlord Insurance.

But a buy-to-let investment is not all it is cracked up to be?
The Saga survey also revealed that:
– One in ten over-50s landlords are only just breaking even or are actually losing money every month.
– Over 30% of those surveyed feared renting to bad tenants.
– Around 20% are worried about managing their rental property as they get older.
– Over 30% had issues with unpaid rent, a quarter had suffered damage to their property and one in ten are taking legal action against tenants.

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Posted in Buying and selling property, Letting and renting

Tagged buying, house prices, landlord, letting, mortgages, renting, tenant

Floorplans are now essential to sell a home

Posted on 27/08/2015 by New Home Expert | Comments Off

Floorplan – you won’t sell your home without one
Floorplans have been around for years as far as new homes are concerned. They are essential, especially in the early stages of a development when the show homes are yet to be built and for “off Plan” sales. In addition, not every house type or variation will be available to view before it is released for sale. But with the advance and popularity of online portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla, floor plans have become moreHomes marketed without a floorplan are very likely to be dismissed out of hand by those searching for a home online. This is even more likely the further a buyer lives from the property.

What should be included in the floorplan

The floorplan should be fully dimensioned with both imperial and metric measurements for each room. This enables buyers to easily determine individual rooms sizes and where the measurements refer such as into a bay window or alcove. The total floor area in square feet/metres should also be shown, enabling potential buyers to compare floor areas and value against other properties. As new homes and room sizes become ever smaller, with UK new homes being some of the smallest in Europe, the size of the average UK new home is just 76sqm (818sqft); a relatively new four bedroom house can have the same floor area as a 30 year old three bedroom home.

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Posted in Buying and selling property

Tagged buying, estate agents, sales, selling

New Home Blog

Housebuilding Prestigious “Bodgers” Awards 2015

Bodge the builder – can they fix it?

Plans To Axe Red Tape – Another Gift From Government To Housebuilders

Attending The APPG Inquiry Into The Quality of New Build Housing in England

Claiming Compensation From Housebuilders

Help To Buy Helps Trigger Large Bonus Windfalls

Summary Of Proposals To Ensure Better Quality New Homes.

New National Space Standards For New Homes Not Compulsory

Corbyn appoints Taylor Wimpey CEO Redfern to advise on housing

The Buy-To-Let Boom Is Over

Floorplans are now essential to sell a home

What should be included in the floorplan

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