anyone recently bought a new build flat?

We paid asking price for our new build flat last October.

There are still flats up for sale in our development and when a friend of ours enquired they are still sticking rigidly to the asking price.

It's hardly odd to pay the asking price especially early on in the development (you might expect to pay less if the developer is wanting rid of a few remaining near the end or whatever) is it?

As for the negotiation, I don't see any harm in trying but I suppose it depends on the circumstances of the developer as to wheteher you'd be likely to get anywhere.

I'd never pay full asking price on a new build, but all is not lost, your friend should not be afraid to negotiate on everything possible. We bought our new build two years ago off plan and got a 5% reduction in price as a starter, after that we got a load of other stuff as things went along. Basically if anything went wrong we asked for something else.

We didn't want flooring as they didn't do what we wanted, but we got lots of other stuff like full removal service, extra downlighters, upgraded kitchen. If you don't ask you don't get. Our house was Wimpey too.

The only thing she needs to bear in mind is that the builders are not giving so many 'incentives' now, they would rather net down the price of the house because people are having problems with lenders and incentives. We're looking to move at the moment and we've got a deal for them to pay stamp duty, legal fees, removal, flooring which they are more likely to do at the moment.

Most people I know who bought off plan have paid full asking price, different if you buy after it's complete as there is more room for negotiation.

TBH I live in a new build house that we bought last year and the houses/flats on the development are selling well even though the housing market in this area seems to be totally stagnant (when we looked to move this time last year we looked at all houses in our price range, nearly all of the older houses we considered are still on the market but all the new builds we looked at have sold) - I think the lack of chain appeals especially. There are very few completed houses up for sale (perhaps 3 or 4) and a number of others are reserved off plan even with the predicted doom and gloom.

We bought off plan - paid asking price but did get quite a few bits thrown in... 5% of the deposit paid, all carpets, stamp duty and solicitor fees paid.... dont think they would have let us get away paying less!