Right, my family and I own a 4 bed house, detached, 2 ensuites, reasonable garden nice size, sought after area etc. Bought it 4 years ago £140k now worth £225. House is only 5 years old by the way.

Down the road they are building 4 beds, slightly smaller, tiny poky gardens, mixed up with social housing, single driveways, narrow streets (as they have to discourage car ownership :rolleyes:) and charging 300k.

The only thing we need is a study, so having an extension costing 15k, moving to a similar property with a study would be £350k.

Am I missing something??

New houses are priced by the developer and not valued by surveyors. ie at a level that they can get away with and with the current market conditions they are raking it in. Ask someone that has recently brought a new house and then tried to remorgage a year later. They normally find out that it is valued at less than the price they paid. The enermy works for a surveyors and they get complaints about this all the time.

It's called the "new house premium". People will pay more for a brand new house that no one has lived in.

Nimbus - dont think thats right, certainly not the huge difference mentioned above. That would mean if you bought a new house for say £50k above the price of a secondhand one and then moved 2 months later you would lose most of that £50k as you would then be selling a secondhand house yourself....

I agree there is a small premium, but we are talking 75-100k for something IMO not quite as nice.

Are you sure the valuer doesnt have his eye on your place and is trying to blag a bargain :D