New Home Owners Survey 2001

The 2001 National Customer Satisfaction Survey is the second survey conducted among owners of newly built homes; the first was conducted in 2000.

Commissioned independently by the Housing Forum and sponsored by the DTI, the survey is designed to provide findings that will allow consumers a more informed choice on their prospective purchase, and to enable housebuilders to measure as well as improve their customer satisfaction performance.

Key Findings

Overall

In general, there is very little change between findings for the two surveys undertaken by MORI. This is reflected in the full star ratings allocated in the Housebuilder Rating Tables for both years; the majority of builders have obtained the same ratings in 2001 as 2000. However, slightly more have a higher full star rating on whether their owners would recommend them, while fewer have higher full star ratings on value for money, overall service from the housebuilder and on after-sales service.

While housebuilders may have implemented changes as a result of the 2000 survey, it is unlikely that the impact of these will have been felt in time to be recorded in 2001. However, this impact should become clearer in future National Customer Satisfaction Surveys.

When comparing findings for the housebuilding industry between the two surveys, due to the large sample sizes (over 10,000 respondents), only small differences are required to indicate a significant change (between +0.8 and +1.4 percentage points).

Quality of the Home

Nearly nine in ten (87%) are satisfied with their new home - the same as findings for 2000.

Attitudes towards the majority of aspects of the home asked about - construction and finish, external design and appearance, storage space and security measures along with overall value for money - are all positive and relatively unchanged from 2000. In contrast, significantly fewer are satisfied with sound proofing (75% compared with 77% in 2000).

Service Provided by Housebuilders

Seven in ten are satisfied with the service from their housebuilder. However, while overall this is similar to 2000 (69%), there does appear to have been some improvement, with significantly fewer dissatisfied with the service provided (21% compared with 23% in 2000).

Levels of satisfaction at all stages of the service provided by the housebuilder are similar to 2000, with the exception of during the buying process, where significantly fewer are satisfied (83% compared with 85% in 2000). Attitudes towards staff are also largely similar, although satisfaction with after-sales staff has increased (59% compared with 57%).

More owners have had housing defects and snags with their home (84% compared with 81% in 2000). However, satisfaction with the overall service provided in dealing with these problems is unchanged (53% versus 54% in 2000).

Owner Attitudes

Compared with findings for 2000, owners are less positive towards newly built homes in 2001.

Whilst more people would recommend their housebuilder than would be critical of them (49% versus 29%), compared with 2000, this level of recommendation is significantly lower (49% compared with 52% in 2000).

In addition, significantly fewer would want another newly built home or one from the same housebuilder (54% compared with 56% in 2000). Fewer are also positive about the build quality of new homes compared with old ones (22% compared with 25% in 2000).

Technical details

Ratings based on a telephone survey with a representative sample of 10,015 owners of newly built homes selected from databases supplied by NHBC and Zurich. Fieldwork conducted between 10th September and 27th October 2001