New build - Help2buy Advice.

The_Floating_House

Hi all, really need some advice... here is the story...

My partner and I are FTB. We have reserved a house priced at £139995 until late march, with a solicitor in place and a mortgage pretty much secured. The house however is based on a new site and only land work such as drainage is in progress, we will be first people to live on site (hopefully). Estimated completion date is Sep 15.

But, in order for us to gain this mortgage we have had to acquire an equity loan in the form of the H2B scheme and use all of our funds, i.e. deposit. Being uneducated in this whole buying a house thing, we assumed flooring etc would come as standard and we never thought to ask what would be included on the build, but with a bit research this doesn't seem to be the case. Thankfully, we haven't exchanged contracts yet...

Seemingly, all other house styles on the new site have attracted much attention and have been reserved as they have been built previously on other sites. Our reserved house however hasn't had much interest as it is a new house style and there isn't much information on it at all, aside from floor plan. Thus our house style is the only style left to buy at this stage of development.

My main question overall is, with funds being tight (partner on maternity leave at the moment) do you think we have a ground to stand on in the form of negotiation especially as there is little interest in the house style I.e. do you think we could persuade them throw some flooring in? We can afford mortgage repayments easily, just saving for flooring could be time consuming and judging by our new addition to the family he will be walking soon, so flooring is essential!!

Hope someone out there can help us?

Thanks

The Floating House.

WillyWonga

Negotiation will only work before you have reserved. Chances are high that the salesman/woman will say no. They use flooring as an incentive to get you to sign on the line which you have already done. You could threaten to pull out but you would the lose your mortgage app, reservation fee etc. if you did.

The_Floating_House

WillyWonga wrote: »

Negotiation will only work before you have reserved. Chances are high that the salesman/woman will say no. They use flooring as an incentive to get you to sign on the line which you have already done. You could threaten to pull out but you would the lose your mortgage app, reservation fee etc. if you did.

That's exactly what I was thinking, especially since we had already reserved the property. Losing the reservation fee and mortgage app in terms of financial loss wouldn't be the worse thing in the world, because like I say flooring is essential for when our little one learns to walk.

Hoping there is not much more interest in the particular property type to enable room for negotiation perhaps. Any suggestions how I would go about this? Don't want walk in and be like 'give me flooring now' lol.

Thanks for your thoughts and reply!

WillyWonga

The annoying thing is that if the properties are not selling you will probably get a banner outside the houses saying "free carpets throughout and kitchen appliances" If you went and asked they will likely say no even though to a house builder carpeting is a minimal expense but can attract buyers.

Dont risk losing a mortgage offer as banks are unpredictable as an offer one day may be a refusal the next, especially if one person is on maternity leave.

The_Floating_House

WillyWonga wrote: »

The annoying thing is that if the properties are not selling you will probably get a banner outside the houses saying "free carpets throughout and kitchen appliances" If you went and asked they will likely say no even though to a house builder carpeting is a minimal expense but can attract buyers.

Dont risk losing a mortgage offer as banks are unpredictable as an offer one day may be a refusal the next, especially if one person is on maternity leave.

Yeah, I could see that happening to help attract buyers, would be our luck! As the houses won't be ready for around 6/7 months we have a mortgage offer in place to be extended if need be, just incase there is any unforeseen delays. Hopefully this may help us negotiate a deal in time before we exchange contracts.

Seems we have some thinking to do in the meantime. Possibly no flooring vs risk of no future mortgage offers.

Which would you choose if in our shoes?

TakeItAsRed

The question i would be asking is how much is the final price going to be?

Have you made a formal reservation and not just the initial 'hey i am interested' reservation?

Have you provided the reservation form to HTB? If not, there is a good chance the price of your property will increase upon build completion.