Buying the 'show home' any experiences - good or bad?

Do you get all the furnishings or just the house? We were interested in the showhome on a developement, but as it had all the best features ie best kitchen, best tiles etc, they obviously wanted more for it, than a normal house off plan. There would be an issue with the valuer not valuing it up enough if you are getting a mortgage.

My boss bought the showhome penthouse on a development in London, for quite a substantial amount of money. None of the electrics worked, the heating was faulty, there were no ariels for the TVs, the plumbing was leaky and the roof leaked too! He's sueing the developers but has had to fork out to fix the problems in the meantime.

I've never known that to be an issue with buying a show home.

Basically they are likely to offer you everything in the show home - down to cutlery etc, everything that dresses it for sale or at a lower price just the house.

Remember the show home is going to have all the top features and probably will be extremely well made. You could also negotiate to have new floors put throughout as people obviously will have been walking so the floors will not be new

KB3 - that sounds dreadful, eek.

claires - as far as I know it's all the furnishings (Hecate - we didn't check on the smaller items) but it would include all fitments and furniture already in.

The kitchen is an upgrade as are all the floor coverings and bathroom tiles.

I'm waiting for them to come back to me with a price. The development is very new and the showhome has only been open since the beginning of February so it's doubtful that they will commit to selling it so soon, however, we do know that they have to sell 12 properties before they are able to start building the rest of the houses.

The issue when we looked was that the builder wanted £30K more for the house as it had all the bits and bobs in. When i spoke to a valuer, he said it wouldnt value up at that, if all the other houses had sold for £30K less.

You'd need to find out how long it would be before you could buy them. We bought a brand new flat (not the show one) a few years ago and it was one of the first to be sold on the development. It took a further 2 years before they sold the showflats as they used them as showflats for all future developments too (even though the layout was nothing like the more recently developed ones).

We bought the show home. It was finished to a much neater standard and had all the best tiles etc and spot lights in all rooms downstairs etc. the garden was done with a swing set and great decked area too. the garage was all lined and great lighting fitted as it was used as the office. It cost more though

Peanut - do you mind me asking (you don't have to tell me!) how much more? We've got the price for this particular type of house so we know it will be more than that we're just not sure how much more, my OH thinks around £20,000. I guess that depends on the type of house though doesn't it? This is a 4 bedroom house we are looking at.

Your OH is pretty much spot on. Ours is a 4 bed and study so roughly the same size. It was in 2006 that we bought though so you may have more luck paying less this time. the difference was the plot size, garden being finished and location and of course the better quality of white goods and quality carpets throughout. It was lovely as the curtains and blinds were all left and had been done by a interior design company so it looked spot on.

Meant to add the floorings were perfect as it was a no shoe and poly bags on the feet job when it was a show house. I think thats pretty standard practise though x

Peanut - thanks. It really is lovely inside and has been very well designed with all the soft furnishings, the whole thing would be perfect and just the right size. If we were to go for a different plot we had hoped to negotiate on the price a little given the current market, I guess there wouldn't be anything stopping us doing the same with the show house. They are going to come back to us with a price and also an indication of when they might release it for sale.

Thanks again.