REDROW remember when family homes were family sized.

Designed to be instantly recognisable, Redrow’s New Heritage Collection is a reaction to the way all new homes had become largely indistinguishable from one another.

Responding to customer feedback, the focus of the new collection is on traditional two-storey homes rather than apartments or homes spread over three floors.

The move follows Redrow founder Steve Morgan’s return to the company. Steve decided “enough was enough” and pledged to restore the company he began 35 years earlier to its core values of quality, tradition and superior styling, with an emphasis on the family homes for which it was once known.

Now firmly back at the helm of Redrow, in his role as chairman, Steve comments: “When I left Redrow in 2000, we had a product widely acknowledged to be the best in the industry, with an average selling price around 25 per cent above the UK average. When I came back our homes were selling at 20 per cent below the market average. We had too many different house styles and no real distinguishing features.

“Feedback from the majority of our customers tells us that they want a conventional two-storey home, preferably detached, with an easily accessible garage and a garden of their own. They want something that looks traditional, perhaps evocative of the family home they grew up in, but they want it to have the latest statement-making kitchens, bathrooms and good quality fixtures and fittings.”

The New Heritage Collection, launched on February 11, at Bonhams, New Bond Street, London, is a distinct step away from the tendency among housebuilders to ‘dumb down’ the product specification in a bid to reduce build costs.

The timing of the launch is impeccable – just as Britain shows signs of recovering from the recession; Nationwide, Halifax and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveys have all reported several months of steady improvement in house prices and / or demand.

Those who remember the early 1990s will recall Redrow’s original Heritage Range, a very distinctive set of homes that differentiated them from competitors and successfully steered them out of a similarly lack-lustre housing market. Redrow is aiming to repeat this feat with the New Heritage Collection.

A set of 35 different homes, it’s a premium housing product with more than a hint of nostalgia, influenced by the ‘Arts and Crafts’ era, but boasting a specification to meet the needs of modern lifestyles. 

Just as the Arts and Crafts era (c1850 – 1915) grew from the desire to bring back the skill and creativity of the individual craftsman and revive the simplicity and honesty in the way buildings and furnishings were made, Redrow has deliberately set out to reintroduce a high degree of individuality to the way its homes look and feel.

Steve explains: “We’ve taken some of the styles, shapes, colours and textures reflected in the Arts and Crafts movement and brought them right up to date with high-specification interiors styled for modern living.”

Evidence of Arts and Craft style housing can be seen in most villages, towns and cities, often on arterial routes. Redrow has researched, photographed and catalogued many of these homes and their features to ensure authenticity in its designs.

External features which typify the era are being reproduced within Redrow’s New Heritage Collection. These include dropped eaves, projecting plinths, bays and other distinctive window styles, often with leaded lights, timber or tiled canopies over doors and windows, supported by decorative gallows brackets, and the use of larch lap boarding as a feature. Front door colours reflect the ‘heritage’ feel, including ‘Brunswick’ green, deep burgundy and rich dark blue.

There are rough cast rendered and brick elevation versions of every housetype in the new collection, allowing individual developments to be designed in keeping with the local area, with options to adapt the styling when strict regional planning guides apply.

While the new collection consists mainly of two-storey detached family homes, there are smaller terraced and semi-detached properties to suit first time buyers, single purchasers, young families and couples looking to downsize.

The traditional exteriors hide a contemporary interior specification, featuring convivial open plan living spaces, fashionable kitchen designs with floor to ceiling units, central islands, top brand name appliances and even American style integrated fridge-freezers as standard in all properties over 1,600 square feet; plus bathrooms that are sleek, modern and pleasing to the eye.

Fully furnished New Heritage show homes are already open at developments in Lancashire, Merseyside, North Yorkshire, Derbyshire, plus North and South Wales. It will also be available soon in Bristol, Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, North Lincolnshire, and Scotland’s central belt.

For more details go to our Redrow contact page for web, phone and tv links.

In a recent release from RightMove we hear that consumer confidence has risen in the UK by 53% along with a prediction that house prices will rise in 2010 albeit slowly!

It seems that our predictions for the New Year of 2010 are on target with the interest rates still holding at 0.50% and house prices up 273% in 50 years and the average consumer feeling far more positive about house price increases for the year ahead.

Some of you may be asking whether or not it’s time to look for fixed mortgages with inflation on the up with CPI at 2.9% in December up from November’s 1.9% with controversy apparent in the press about just how quickly it could rise throughout this year, but our advice is to hold back a little longer – perhaps until the end of 2010.

The reason we say this is that most fixed rates available now are for a two year period, which could mean you having to negotiate a renewal of a fixed rate mortgage at the end of 2011, just as the competition is ‘hotting’ up and the fixed mortgage rates quite a bit higher.  If you hang on until the end of 2010 that two year period should take you through the worst of it into 2013 when the property market should have stabilised.

Another word of caution here is to be careful when choosing a lender.  If you choose the wrong one it could cost you up to £5700 a year extra! 

There is a wide variation in standard variable rates being set by the different lenders which are responsible for a difference of almost £5700 a year on a £150 000 home loan.  In simple terms, some lenders are just not passing on the cuts that they are now enjoying!  Lloyds TSB’s mortgage arm of Cheltenham and Gloucester and Nationwide BS are among the lenders offering the lowest standard variable rate at 2.5% against Chesham BS at a whopping 6.45%!  

The calculation isn’t hard to do.  At 2.5% on a £150 000 loan you’d be paying £3997.00/annum in interest but at 6.45% it would stand at £9686/annum.  Personally, I’d rather have that difference in my back pocket!  Shop around before you buy is our advice.

One of the other topics that we touched on in our predictions was the buy to let market.  Rentals are up with demand outstripping supply which is great news for those of you with property to let.   For those of you in rentals, it may be a good time to start monitoring what the new house builders are offering and see if you can your feet on the first rung of the ladder before rental prices start shooting up later this year due to that lack of demand.

House builder Redrow is releasing their New Heritage Homes portfolio on the 12th February and if these don’t suit, I’m sure they can help you find one that does!  In the meantime, take a minute to subscribe to Property Pathways monthly ezine and forward this edition to a friend to enjoy.

DITCHING the DIY and buying a brand new home could save you thousands.

Redrow has calculated that it can cost £30,000 to bring an older second hand property up to the same standard as one of its new homes, not to mention the huge outlay of time and energy.

In contrast, investing in a home from Redrow’s just launched New Heritage Collection could save you time and money as they’re constructed to a very high standard, with an up to date specification and highly polished finish. They feature stylish kitchens and bathrooms, top brand name appliances and they’re well insulated with full central heating and double glazed windows.

Kim Peters, Redrow’s group sales and marketing director says: “People think they want an older property, buy one and then spend thousands of pounds and invest a lot of energy turning something that a new home already offers.

“Inspired by the architecture, colours and textures of the Arts and Crafts movement, homes in our New Heritage Collection boast the external character of older period-style properties.

“The look and feel of the collection loses none of the integrity or style in the translation from the past to the present and each home has its own special features and proportions.”

Research has shown that a brand new home is up to 40% more efficient than one built10 years ago, which should mean lower fuel bills. A newly built home is also easy to maintain and keep clean, leaving home owners with more time to enjoy the life they’ve chosen to live. And it carries the added reassurance of a two-year guarantee for any fitted appliances and the National Home-Building Council (NHBC) 10-year ‘Buildmark’ warranty.

A national survey by SmartNewHomes.com found that cash-conscious homebuyers are increasingly looking to new homes due to their lower on-going running costs.

In a survey of over 1,000 active UK home searchers, one-in-two of the homebuyers questioned stated the low maintenance of new-build properties as their primary reason for buying new. Over 40% of respondents also cited the peace of mind offered by the 10-year new-build warranty as another key reason for choosing new over re-sale homes.  Large numbers also quoted energy efficiency and modern appliances as further motives for buying new.

The SmartNewHomes.com survey backed Redrow’s £30,000 estimate of how much it costs to bring an older home up to scratch. In fact, 13% of respondents who owned a re-sale home revealed that their overall spend on home improvements actually exceeded this amount.

And over 10% said they had to dedicate an average of more than 10 hours per week to DIY and renovations for their previously-owned home – equating to over three weeks of time for the year as a whole.

Kim adds: “The message is clear – why buy an older property and spend tens of thousands of pounds and all your spare time upgrading it, when the New Heritage Collection from Redrow has the character of bygone times but the internal specification to meet the needs of today’s modern lifestyles.”

Influenced by the ‘Arts and Crafts’ era, the New Heritage Collection is a premium housing product with more than a hint of nostalgia, but boasting a specification to meet the needs of modern lifestyles. 

Initial prices are from circa £161,495 for a three-bedroom New Heritage Collection home in Liverpool, from £202,995 for a three-bedroom detached home in Chorley, Lancashire, from £162,995 in Wrexham, North Wales, and from £179,995 in Caerphilly, South Wales.

Redrow’s New Heritage Collection can be viewed on Redrow TV which can be accessed via the ‘see Redrow’ section of the Redrow website, please click here for details.

* £30,000 estimate (inc vat) is based on upgrading a typical three-bedroom house to include new kitchen units and appliances; a new heating system; replacement wiring and remedial plastering; additional loft insulation; redecoration including materials; new bathroom suites, including ground-floor cloakroom and en-suite; replacement windows; new guttering including fitting; and replacement of fascias.

REDROW is channelling in to the digital revolution with the introduction of its very own broadband TV station, delivered via the internet.

Dedicated to all things Redrow, Redrow TV will keep customers right up to date with all the latest news, products and development films. It will be one of the first places where potential customers will be able to ‘see’ inside show homes from Redrow’s New Heritage Collection.

Complementing the company’s existing website, Redrow TV will be ‘live’ on the internet so people can access it wherever they get broadband – at home, at work or even on their mobile phone.

Kim Peters, Redrow’s group sales and marketing director, says: “These days, more than 60% of internet searches are for video content, because people would much rather watch and listen than read from the screen. Redrow TV gives them all the news they need, in a friendly format that they will want to visit again and again.

“Believed to be the first of its kind in the UK housing industry, Redrow TV will give us a unique advantage in attracting and holding the attention of home buyers and guiding them towards their Redrow purchase.”

The new TV channel will feature development overviews, detailed show home films – including the exciting New Heritage Collection – plus all the latest news, from new products and developments to wider market news, mortgages and more. The news content will be updated daily to keep it fresh, including ‘roving’ reports of site based activity.

There will also be footage to explain the various incentives and help available to home buyers, such as part exchange, Mastermove – a service to help customers sell their existing property – and the Government-backed HomeBuy Direct, which provides eligible purchasers with a 30% equity loan towards the cost of their home.

Redrow’s New Heritage Collection can be viewed on Redrow TV which can be accessed via the ‘see Redrow’ section of the Redrow website, please click here for details.

HOME buyers can look forward to something special from developer Redrow this year.

The award winning housebuilder is launching its latest housing collection next month (February) as the company returns to its traditional focus of family housing.

The New Heritage Collection will feature the traditional looking exteriors that so many British home owners know and love but, inside, the homes will be brought right up to date with an interior specification that’s designed for 21st century living.

Kim Peters, group sales and marketing director at Redrow, says: “The feedback we get from the majority of our customers is that they want a conventional two-storey home, preferably detached, with an easily accessible garage and a garden of their own. They want something that looks traditional, perhaps evocative of the family home they grew up in, but they want it to have the latest statement-making kitchens, bathrooms and good quality fixtures and fittings.

“We have wrapped all of this up in a beautiful collection of new homes to be unveiled next month and rolled out across the country throughout 2010.”

The evolution of Redrow’s product range follows on from work during 2009 to upgrade its interiors, creating an emphasis on more convivial open plan living spaces, fashionable kitchen designs with floor to ceiling units, central islands and top brand name appliances, plus bathrooms that are sleek, modern and pleasing to the eye.  Interiors have been further enhanced for the new collection.

See next month’s Property Pathways for more on Redrow’s New Heritage Collection or look out for show homes near you.

For details of Redrow developments around the UK go to www.redrow.co.uk or call 0845 676 0500.

Redrow’s contemporary interiors