Advice needed on discount for new builds

pawntoc5

Hello all! My partner and I are looking to buy a 2 bedroom flat somewhere in Zone 3 or 4 of London. We plan on using the HTB scheme and recently we found an interesting flat that matches our criteria. Have done some research on the developer and build quality (eg. reaching out to existing residents of the development; feedback has been positive and seems genuine as far as we can tell). We also like the location - less than half an hour door-to-door to Charing Cross.

We would feel comfortable putting in an offer but are wary of the looming Brexit cloud ahead and its impact of property prices. My question to you is, just how inflated are the prices of new builds in general? Is it realistic to expect us to be able to transact at 10% below list price? List price being around £530k now. Assume here that we are having the developer pay the stamp duty as they've expressed willingness to do that.

For additional context, this 2 bedroom we're looking at is the last one they've got to sell in the development so there may be less pressure for them to "maintain the price point" so to speak. We've also checked how much the other 2 bedroom units sold for on the land registry website, but the transacted prices don't look like a good gauge as those units were virtually all sold in 2017 and Q1 2018. Believe the market and buyer sentiment has changed quite a bit.

Also, this isn't one of the big box developers but their track record seems decent. Obviously, every situation differs and there are lots of variables, but considering the above, I just wanted to get a sense from anyone with experience on new builds to see if we could realistically expect to transact at 10% below the list price, which means our offer would have to be c. 15% below and we negotiate towards the 10%. Please let us know if we're way off base here! Thanks so much for any insights anyone can offer.