How much did you knock off the new build asking price?

cattie

A friend bought a new build in Gloucester last year & got £16k knocked off of a property up for £165k by telling them it was the max he could afford.

dgtazzman

0% off in Northampton area last week with Barratt's on one of the last houses of a site, though to be fair they were already priced competitively in comparison with similar houses of other developers in the same area (around 10k cheaper on average) and they added turfing as a standard.

Got told they'd already been priced to move fast as they wanted to bring and end to the development, so no further negotiation on price would be considered, also they didn't feel the need as sales figures had gone through the roof in the last 3 months (taken with a grain of salt). Managed to negotiate stamp duty paid and flooring throughout, coming to approx. 3.5% of the sale price in incentives. Bear in mind many lenders will only allow up to 5% of incentives when using the HTB scheme.

RenStar

There are so many variables, its hard to generalise. We approached Taylor Wimpey last year and offered 15k below asking and they wouldn't budge, they wouldn't take 10k below or even 7k below. Most they would do was 2.5k off plus flooring. So we walked...

Persimmon down the road in the same area, but we went to them when it was coming to their year end (more coincidence than by design, just happened to be when the house type we were interested in was being released). We weren't quite early enough but still managed to get a decent plot. They originally rejected our £20k below offer and came back with a counter offer which was 16k below asking plus a fair few non cashable like flooring and appliances. The sales lady was actually fairly straight forward with us about what she thought we could push for; for some reason she seemed to really take to us and highlighted some areas we never wouldn't even have considered asking for, such as upgrades to kitchen, tiles, taps and door handles. Then again, I was willing to listen to her for hours whittle on about how her son still hasn't give her any grandkids and how lucky my parents must be with with having such beautiful and well behaved (as if!) granddaughters...(stealth boast )

Depends on your stomach for negotiating and how prepared you are to walk. If you can build up a good rapport with the sales agent, that can also help. Generally though, if you don't need their incentives (new/first buy, stamp duty, deposit paid blah blah blah, can't keep up with it all) and are straight forward buyer then you are in a much better negotiating position. Just ask, worse they can say is no! Good luck.

kingstreet

michaelbella wrote: »

Asking price was £151,995, and I asked for it for £150,000 as we wouldn't have to pay stamp duty due to it being in a deprived area

For current readers;-

SDLT relief for disadvantaged areas ended in April 2013.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sdlt/reliefs-exemptions/disadvantaged-areas.htm

Tancred

Ruthie_v wrote: »

I'm looking at buying a new build house and thought it would be interesting for people to share their experiences - how much discount you managed to get on your new build purchase?

Having searched forums, everyone has an opinion on how much you can get off, but I'm wondering how much you actually got off!

I became curious about this when I saw a mortgage adviser yesterday, who told me about a lady who managed to get 10k off the asking price plus stamp duty, equating to about 19k in total!

Just how desperate are builders to sell? I have been advised by estate agents that new builds are like new cars - expect the price to drop straight away, so to bear this in mind when buying new.

Interestingly, the new build i'm looking at was originally on the market for 299,995 in May this year (they don't know i know this), and now they're telling me its 310k!

Thanks!

You can sometimes get big £20k discounts, though this is unusual, and the developer can always change his mind until exchange.

We are now in a rising market - at least in the south-east - and the £10k increase you mentioned is not surprising.
In February I was looking at a 3 bed detached on a new estate which was discounted from £320k down to £300k and then £290k with SDLT paid - as soon as the last discount was made it sold in a flash. I kicked myself but I couldn't proceed at the time anyway.
I reckon the developers might have regretted being so generous. Now the same type of house is on sale for £315k with no incentives other than the government schemes. Fortunately I managed to secure one for £295k back in July after the surveyor 'down-valued' it to £290k and the builders agreed on £295k including carpets and fitted kitchen. I exchanged last week - a big relief.

Tancred

HELIMONKEY wrote: »

You can always walk away if your not happy with the offer on the table.

Hope this helps.

I always get annoyed when I see posts saying 'you can always walk away'.

Well, in a lot of cases you simply can't just walk away. If there is nothing else decent for sale in your area and you have your heart set on that house then you are in a difficult position. If you walk away you might live to regret it.
When I bought for the first time in 2005 there was a house in a perfect area for me and my wife - the house itself was also exactly what we are looking for. I offered £5k below the asking price and it was rejected, then I offered £2.5k below the asking price and it was still rejected. By that stage I was getting really annoyed and flatly told them to %~@*! off. In the end we bought a house that was £20k cheaper but wasn't as nice or in as convenient an area. We had loads of issues with the house and also some annoying neighbours. In the end we had to sell earlier this year, were well and truly shafted by the £250k SDLT threshold problem, and have now moved to a much more expensive house. If we had gone for the original house, albeit more expensive, we would probably not have had to move and the house's value would have risen faster. Big mistake - cheaper is not always better.

m2786

Asking price £199,999
Paid £150,000

Noted and recorded as 28,000 builder discount 22,000 promotional. It was the last available property. May bank holiday weekend. Neighbours property sold for £178,000 on land registry and mine £150,000 even though they are identical. Looks like they didnt negotiate much!

m2786

We have just ha an offer accepted on a property we brought to let. £117,995 asking and we offered £106,500 declined then offered £107,995 accepted!

ging84

you can always walk away, there maybe be times that if you do, you'll come to regret it, there maybe times where if you don't you'll regret it.

To get the deal we wanted on our new build we took over a month of negotiating, we left the sales office without a deal waited for them to give us a call again a number of times before we finally made a deal. Part of me feels i drove a very hard bargain, we got the plot we were after which was the important part, plus we got a reasonable discount and everything we needed included.
Which was 15k of the asking price, flooring included and a few hundred quid for extras
But on the other hand i felt they knew a bit too much about our situation, they knew there was nothing else as good as what they were offering locally that we could afford, which is partly why it was so difficult to negotiate with them and wonder how much further i could have pushed it. In a few months i'll be able to compare properties sold prices and see what other people have paid.

Personally i think comparing discounts is rather pointless, what you can expect will always be changing, it will depend on, to list a few things: the plot, the type of plot, the number of other similar plots, the individual site, the area, the competition, the time of year, the wider market, the scale of the site, the stage of development the site is in and the time until completion of the specific plot. Then on top of all that there are pricing marketing strategies, such as pricing one plot well to draw people in, then offering a large 'discount' on the new one up to up-sell.
In general some times they'll just want to get plots sold quick, other times they'll want to hold out and all the negotiating in the world isn't going to get you a decent discount.

HTB_newbie

In contrast to the discounts everyone has got above, we ended up paying more than the list price!

Our son has started school and we didn't want to move his school. A new build came up in the next village along and it was just one of two new houses on a long established street in a really nice area with a good sized garden (150ft). We fell in love with the house, which already had flooring etc... budgeted in. The small builder set a budget for the kitchen and we could use how we wanted but we wanted a more expensive kitchen, a large shed for the garden, a wood burning stove and some other extras for the house... The builder offered to do these extras at cost so we have paid more for the house to utilise the kind offer of free labour rather than get things done later.

We are waiting for the valuation to come back but provided this is okay we will be very happy to proceed with the price we have paid as we view this home as a long term home.

I feel that it is not about what discount you get but whether or not you are happy to pay a particular price for the home you are considering.