Barratt offers incentives to new home buyers

[Developer]

Barratt, the UK’s largest housebuilder which has just recorded a 14% fall in house sales and a 68% drop in profits, is offering incentives to new home buyers.Following on from the government’s decision to implement a stamp duty holiday on properties up to a value of £175,000, Barratt is offering to pay the 3% [...]

More: Barratt offers incentives to new home buyers

[SandraB]

Is this website being used to promote house builders?

[brian]

No, we just report news from the industry - and obviously house builders generate a lot of news directly, which we'll try and cover.

[Mailmannz]

So has anyone bought a Barratts home, in particular the Thorndon?

Wife and I are seriously interested in one in Huntingdon. Looks quite nice, large spacious rooms...but wanted to know if anyone had anything good or bad to say about these guys?

Regards

Mailman

[brian]

See if this helps for starters:
Guide to Buying a New Build Property

New build properties these days tend to suffer from lower construction standards, and to be honest, I'm amazed they can even be valued at comparative prices to more solidly built homes - which applies to all the home builders.

With regards to Barratts - my mum once warned me that Barratt show houses have doors missing to hide the fact that they are likely to bang into light fittings or each other.

Personally bought a 4 year old Barratts just over 2 years ago, and it has a lot of issues still outstanding which can no longer be addressed under a NHBC - the double glazing was never properly installed and despite various call outs by the previous own, has never been corrected - will probably need double glazing from scratch again.

Also, the boiler and heating are very minimum - cheap and weak. Am tempted to invest in a stronger boiler and more radiators in future because you can't have a bare minimum heating system in the Highlands of Scotland.

There are various smaller issues - upstairs plug sockets a few feet from the floor level, and various other minor issues - I figure most properties would have something anyway.

But I guess the pointer is, new build houses are built to low standards, finishing is often poor, and subcontractors used can be totally unqualified for the work they are (cheaply) paid for - which impacts all new builds. And Barratts has done little to break this mould - though quality will vary between different developments.

To be perfectly honest, I would personally try and avoid new build properties in the future unless I had good enough assurances that the build quality and developer were of a high standard.

2c.

[Mailmannz]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the reply.

Re the power points. I noticed that they were a couple feet off ground level in the bed rooms (ground floor rooms all had them at ground level).

It looks like they are done this way for bedroom furniture (like in hotels) where a cradenza or something would be placed in front of the socket etc.

Regards

Mailman

[brian]

Interesting point - hadn't thought of that.

With the number of finishing errors to the property, it's hard to presume intelligence on the part of Barratts, and easier to presume stupidity on the part of the subcontractors.

[Chrisrose]

We just had an insulting experience with Barratt when they offered 70% of the value of our home in part exchange despite the blurb indicating you get actual value = Naturally we declined. The reason sockets are at a height I believe are new regulations for disabled people - it makes it much easier to plug and unplug at that height

[brian]

Trouble is, "actual value" is whatever markets will pay, and if a property isn't selling that it's only market value is whatever a buyer will pay.

You'll find very few companies offering to buy cash for a property at 100% marketed value, as in the current market with prices expected to fall further through 2009, any buyer needs to brace themselves against potential loss.

[sunych]

Originally Posted by brian

Trouble is, "actual value" is whatever markets will pay, and if a property isn't selling that it's only market value is whatever a buyer will pay.

You'll find very few companies offering to buy cash for a property at 100% marketed value, as in the current market with prices expected to fall further through 2009, any buyer needs to brace themselves against potential loss.

Any suggestions to avoid a potential loss?