Invest in your future with Millwood Designer Homes

With the cost of living continually rising, buying a new home could be more of an investment than you think and now couldn’t be a better time to buy, as John Elliott, Managing Director of Millwood Designer Homes, explains.

With a national shortage of new homes, there is insufficient supply to meet demand. We are building fewer homes now than at any time since 1923 and inevitably this shortage will cause house prices to rise.

New homes are as technically advanced as you could expect in terms of energy efficiency, and who can afford in this day and age to not have regard for energy efficiency when recent analysis by the Bank of England suggested the UK will see a 15 per cent rise in domestic gas prices and a 10 per cent rise in domestic electricity prices in the next 12 months.

This will be just another blow for homeowners who have witnessed soaring energy prices and maintenance charges increase the cost of owning and running a home to its highest level for three years. Utility bills have rocketed almost 20 per cent since 2008, while repairs have gone up by 17 per cent. Excluding mortgages, housing-related expenditure increased by 13 per cent between March 2008 and March 2011, more than the ten per cent rise in inflation. The last round of fuel price increases ended in March, when fuel bills rose by an average of six per cent.

It doesn’t get any better! Further rises are expected, with blame falling on the crisis in the Middle East and the recent Japanese tsunami and nuclear disaster. This is bad timing for homeowners after the Bank of England recently signalled even more misery with a likely rise in interest rates later this year.

So now could not be a better time to start finding ways to reduce your household expenditure, and a new home will certainly help to do that. New homes are far more environmentally friendly and sustainable than they have ever been. In fact, due to new building standards that were introduced in 2006 and 2010, new homes are now 40% more energy efficient than those built at the beginning of the decade.

New homes always benefit from the latest advances in construction, insulation and energy-efficient technology. Highly-efficient heating systems using condensing boilers coupled with comprehensive levels of insulation and air tightness all help to create houses that are comfortable to live in and economical to run. Underfloor heating is also a very efficient way of heating the rooms of a house. There are no radiators or heaters on show, no maintenance, and the heat is distributed evenly around each room.

High levels of specification also help to ensure your home is as energy efficient as possible. Induction hobs, low-energy fittings and reduced-flow-rate-valves for water consumption are just some of the things that help reduce your living costs.

Through Millwood’s unique Design & Build Private Clients service, we are currently building new homes for a number of individual clients who have all had the choice of extending the levels of efficiency even further. Rainwater recycling systems, photo voltaic and ground-source heat pumps using geo-thermal energy are just some of the innovative solutions that help to keep your home environmentally friendly and reduce your living costs.

So take a look at the range of Millwood properties available, and invest in your future today: mdh.uk.com