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What do buyers want in a new home?

A survey unveiled this week by Rightmove.co.uk, the UK's number one property website, shows that buyers of new houses look for a kitchen that is well equipped to cook a gastronomic dinner – with a quality oven and smart worktops – but don't care much about the microwave.

Rightmove, which displays more than 4,800 styles of new build properties on behalf of many of the UK's leading residential property developers, conducted the poll among its builders to ascertain what features of a new home are most important to prospective buyers and influence them to purchase a property.

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		Score
	Feature	1 = very important
		10 = less important
1=	Quality fitted oven	2.6
1=	Quality granite/Corian worktops	2.6
3	Power shower	2.8
4	Quality bathroom suite	3.4
5	Quality washing machine	4.4
6=	Quality fitted dishwasher	4.8
6=	Quality fitted microwave	4.8
8	Quality tap fittings	5.4

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Nick McKittrick, director of New Homes at Rightmove, explains: “Surprisingly, it wasn't the labour-saving devices like the microwave and dishwasher that came out top but rather the traditional kitchen equipment: a good oven from a respected manufacturer like Neff or Bosch, and granite or Corian work surfaces.”

“Maybe today's discerning home buyers are turning their backs on convenience foods and going back to traditional home cooked meals – Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, for example.”

After the oven and worktops, the most important items of equipment in a new build home were in the bathroom – a high specification power shower such as Aqualisa and good bathroom fittings.

“In today's market, busy people look for a good, reliable shower and one of the advantages of newly built properties is that they can incorporate such fittings as original equipment,” says Nick.

Kitchen appliances such as washing machine, microwave and dishwasher scored less highly and developers find that buyers care little about tap fittings.