Negotiating price on a new-build property (& cooeeeee to Old Bear!)

Hi ducky, very exciting that you are house hunting! I work for a national housebuilder and can confirm you should definitely try to negotiate either on price or getting things thrown in such as tiles or flooring etc. If the woman that works there is telling you to negotiate too then defo go for it. It would be worth writing down items you want thrown in and also deciding on what you want to pay then going back to see them. Good luck! Let me know if you need any more advice

Ask Old Bear too, she's in the process of buying a new-build.

Work out what the maximum is you are prepared to pay and what you want for your money. Take a cheeky view and go from there. Also consider getting a contribution towards stamp duty, solicitors fees.

Developers are finding it hard to shift new builds so you ought to get a bargain. I wouldn't live in one but we bought and sold one a couple of years back. Bought off plan, got a decent deal, waited for it to be built and sold it on. We made money but so did the developers - they'll make sure they make a profit so don't worry about sounding greedy!

We recently contemplated moving to a new build David Wilson. List price was 259,999. Without much effort at all we got them to agree to price match our deposit (we had 5%) and to knock the price down to 249999 as I stated I would not pay anything above 250 as the stamp duty would be ridiculous. The agreed all this in principle within about 5 mins. This was however on an estate that is nearly finished so they are kern to shift last few houses. We decided not to go for it in the end, but currently are getting alerts through for a new barratts development. We are keeping an eye on the offers so we know what to aim for. The best offer recently has been 10k off or stamp duty paid, plus luxury flooring plus 500 towards fees. Hope that helps give an idea of what you can expect to try to get.

Thanks for replying Holey! We are like excited children at the moment.

Tonight we plan to go through the brochures and pick what we like of what comes as standard, and possible extras ready for negotiating. The house comes with lots of things as standard (like an oven, fridge-freezer, washing machine and dishwasher) but no flooring. That surprised us as one of the reasons we are considering a new-build is the move-straight-on appeal. Our possible extras so far are:

Kitchen floor I'd like to upgrade to ceramic tiles.

Tiles/wood in the entrace hall rather than carpet.

Wooden floor in the living room.

Carpet all upstairs (apart from bathrooms).

Downstairs loo half-tiled.

No fussed about grass in the garden, but might ask anyway!

One of those squirty taps for washing up with - Not sure if they do them though.

Any other ideas I might not be thinking of?

By the way, we are thinking of buying from a company that starts with B and rhymes with Hovis if that makes any difference.

Thanks Cricks and Spaceman.

A good deposit can mean a better deal with the builders? We have a 40% deposit for this house, so I might make sure I keep mentioning that! It is just under £250k so stamp duty won't be an issue, but I didn't know about help towards legal fees. I'm learning so much!

We also didn't want a new build to begin with, but this is unlike any other new-build I have seen. It over looks a huge area of parkland too which really sells it to me.

Yes we haggled on our new build, and like you said we managed to get it for just under the 250k stamp duty so it was a double bonus.

I think the reason it doesn't come with flooring is because it is an easy thing for the developer to 'throw in' and most people would want the flooring down for when they move in.

I think all the things you've got on your list already are good items to ask for, I would try and steer away from things that they don't put on their brochures (such as the tap) as most of the time they wouldn't be able to do it for you anyway (I know we wiouldn't). It is also a relatively easy item for you to change your self when you move in if you have your heart set on it,

As Cricks mentioned contribution towards legal fees would be a good one, even if its only £1000 it will help lower your start up costs.

Also consider turf in the garden as one of your items as again this is something they would probably agree to do for you quite readily

Wish we'd done this, twas a right royal PITA painting the walls behind the loo & sink particularly as I'd hurt my knee so couldn't kneel down at the time!

TBH, I wouldn't be too worried about turf in the back garden, it probably won't be put down very well. Our's hadn't bothered rolling the earth before laying the turf so it's up & down all over the place plus in a lot of places the back of the turf didn't actually meet the earth so it died quite quickly - thankfully it was where we were planning on putting a patio!

We didn't even try to negotiate on price but that's because we were part exchanging so they wouldn't have played ball. Worth a go particularly if the sales woman mentioned it, I think developers are struggling at the moment to shift things. Ours have just sold 19 houses to a bloody housing association - we aren't impressed at all.

We didn't buy from the developer you are talking about - we viewed some of their houses but the sales woman was a right snotty, miserable cow & they only had 3 storey houses left which we weren't interested in. Build quality looked fine though, better than another developer round here.

Tis a very exciting time, we moved in nearly a year ago.

When we moved in we did an exchange with the builder on our old house (cutting out the estate agent fees and saving a lot of time) and then we got 10k knocked off the purchase price, got more added to the purchase price of ours, got it carpeted throughout (about 3k's worth of carpet apparently), got the garden turfed (another 2k) and a few other bits and bobs. If you push them you can get pretty much anything

Hey

I live in a new build and we have a local residents forum and I know some people that brought off the plans before the properties were finished are screwed because they paid over the odds as other property in the development of the same spec are now selling for about £50k less then they paid now they are finished, the are now stuck with a mortgage greater then their property is worth and being a new build little opportunity to add value. I know this is always a risk with new build but the moral of the story is haggle now as most new builds drop the prices 'if' they cant shift them all in good time.

Wow, how incredibly judgemental of you.....

Speaking from experience. On the same estate near where we used to live there was a whole street of housing association properties and it was an absolute hell hole, nobody gave a toss about the upkeep of their property or gardens or their behaviour & there was no end of problems. Yes there are a lot of people in housing association properties who are absolutely fine but there are also a lot who aren't.

Thanks all. Lots of things to think about.

I think it is now the law to build some social housing with every new development, so thank you RVS2B for pointing that out, that is top of the list to find out where they are located.

OB you are a great help! You've just been through the negotiation stage so it is all fresh in your mind. Thanks for you help.

Yea I hear you! some apartments in our block went to housing association recently and funny how graffiti started to appear in the lifts and matresses and other large items of furniture started to appear in the bin and storage area, washing lines out on the balconys which never happended for the 2 years prior to this happening.

Our estate has "affordable housing" in one section, and I can honestly say there has only been one "problem" family who let their young kids run riot, but they moved last summer so no problems no. Its mostly young couples (first time buyers) and young families.

We first negotiated the price on our old house, then once we had that in writing we negotiated the price on the new house and then what "extras" they house builders were going to throw in. Feel free to get in touch if you want more info!

I would just like to add that our new house will technically be 'affordable housing' as it is shared ownership and I do think that everyone that is in 'affordable housing' gets tarred with the same brush. I can honestly say I've also only ever come across one problem family in my own personal experience of affordable housing too.

Ducky I would only say that if you are worried about it then ask them which plots will be rented and which will be shared ownership (If they know) as in my personal experience I've only ever encountered problems with a family in rented as with shared ownership you've got a stake in the house yourself so people will treat it as their own if that makes sense.

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box now!

Definitely in this market you should negotiate! Lots of people struggling to get mortgages so if you're in a position to move you should make the most of it and negotiate hard - maybe for extra improvements (consevratory/garden landscaping etc) if they won't do a discount?

charlotte x

Hey Ducky, I act for a few developers and it completely depends on how the houses are selling. On one particular development, five years ago, I was receiving new instructions every week and there was literally a waiting list for the properties as they were going on the market. Now, I'm lucky to get instructions once every couple of months and the prices are way reduced from the market value. Depends a lot on the area and the type of people who are looking for houses. You'll get an idea by seeing how long the houses have been on the market. You've really got nothing to lose by asking.

In terms of the extras, i you're buying off plan, sometimes you'll get an allowance (called Prime Cost Sums) of e.g. £500 for tiles. If you want nicer tiles, you have to top it up with your own money. This is where you could negotiate a bit.

In response to the affordable housing comments, new developments rarely get passed for planning permission without some sort of conditions, sometimes it's contribution towards a local school, improvement of access roads and sometimes affordable housing, which are sold at 70% below market value. Where I live, these can only go to people who've lived in the area for 10 years, or are a "key worker" (police, teacher, nurse etc) and cannot raise more than 110% of the property's value. Loads of my friends have bought affordable properties as their first homes, as they satisfy the requirements. In my experience, it's usually first time buyers rather than necessarily low income families.

Housing association properties are different again in that the developer has to make a certain number of properties available to a local housing association and they can then allocate those houses to whomever they like. In fact, some developments have covenants in the plot sales to say that the house can never be sold to a housing association.

Let me know if you want me to look into anything for you.

When we bought our house 3 years ago we negotiated £10,000 off the price. We are in a row of 4 & 3 had been empty for over a year.

New build with kitchen, bathroom etc but we got £5000 off for wanting to decorate it ourselves rather than purchase turnkey - builder would most prob have used cheap carpet, viny, washing machine etc but we wanted to put our own stuff in. Cost way more than £5000 but its of our choice.

I told the builder our max price which was another £5000 after above. He rang me & offered me £1000 over it. I said no, that was our maximum price so he gave it to us. At the end of the day he wasnt going to lose a sale on a house for £1000 - it meant more to me than it did him! I think because the houses had been empty so long he just wanted to get the ball rolling again. Within a month the other 2 were sold - one for £5000 more than what we paid & its a smaller house.

2 months before our offer was accepted he had our house sold at the £10,000 more but the fella lost his job so the builder kindly gave him his deposit back.

We bought our Charles Church new build 3 years ago. As we'd sold my house we had no chain and a good deposit, we also went in on a Sunday when the sales lady admitted Charles Church hadn't made a sale all week.....so H put in a mega cheeky offer (near enough £100,000 under) which she refused, so we walked away. It was so hard to walk away but paid off as she rang us later that day and we negotiated our cheeky offer! So lucky, they needed ours sold to finish building the remaining three houses on the development.

I find it hard to haggle/be a bit cheeky but H is good at it and it paid off, there's no way we'd have afforded it otherwise.