1. New homes can be bad for your health : Despite the RIBA’s campaign, “A case for Space“, UK new homes today are the smallest in Europe. Add in the fact that house builders choose to use small windows reducing the amount of natural daylight.
A new home is bad for your health and has been linked to depression, immune system suppression and diabetes type 2; as well as adversely affecting internal organs.
2. Social housing : Most new developments require an allocation of social housing. Managed by housing associations for people on low incomes or benefits, these houses are often mixed in among the owner occupied houses.
3. Price : New homes are usually over-priced, much higher than comparable older homes, which nearly always offer better value.
4. No front garden : Most new homes have just a small strip of ground between the back of the estate footpath and the wall of the house, just enough to provide room for the gas meter box. The result is a lack of privacy as anyone walking by can look directly into your rooms. Using net curtains or blinds will make the rooms even darker. A 21st century Coronation Street”
5. Small rear gardens and overlooking : As densities increase year on year, the house builders use ever-imaginative methods to maximise the number of homes they can cram in per acre. This means rear gardens are normally very small, part of which may even be used as a driveway! Cramped developments mean overlooking, noise and potential disputes with neighbours as new homeowners are forced to live on top of each other “by design”.
6. Garages too small for an average family car :
House builders tend to use the presumption that most people only use the garage for storage. Those that try to park their car in a new-build garage find they are too small and impossible to get out of the car!
7. Poor build quality and after sales service : Whatever any house builder may claim, the build quality of new homes built in the UK today is poor at best. In the HBF own customer satisfaction survey, 96% of new homes experience several defects in their new home. Despite the Consumer Code for Home builders, after sales customer service has not improved to any degree, builder are still misleading buyers all of which result in many new home buyers living to regret buying a brand new home.
8. Lack of parking : With narrow estate roads and shared driveways favoured by house builders to maximise the number of homes parking is at a premium. Whilst there may well be parking allocation of one car per home, there is often insufficient parking for additional cars and for visitors.
9. More difficult to re sell : Re selling is not something new homebuyers normally give any consideration to but they should! New homes, or at least those built since 2003, are more difficult to sell and take longer to sell than older homes. One reason is that around 3 in every 4 potential house buyers wouldn’t even consider a home built after 2003.
10. Low grade land : Many new homes are built on low grade, brownfield land, or previously contaminated land. Some new homes are even built on land that is at risk of flooding.
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