David Wilson Homes - Winstone: Upgrade Prices?

Zara_Ch123

Hi,
I am interested in a DWH, specifically the Winstone. The property won't be released until later this year so we are not at reservation stage yet. I asked about pricing upgrades and we got some vague responses, not sure if they only disclose that information after reservation, once you tie yourself in!
So if anyone here has purchased a Winstone before could you let me know what the 'standard' options were and what the upgrades are/cost (and if they're worth it).
Thank you in advance!

Runningmad

Shame there were no replies. We are in this position now, did you buy the house? Do you have feedback /advice on the upgrades? 

stressedout45

We are in the process of buying a DW home , although not the Winstone - but a smaller one. So I can tell you a bit about ours, and hope that the information is useful for you!  

We were not able to find out the prices of upgrades until after reservation, when they provided us with a link to the “Expressions” website.   On there,  you can see all the upgrade options available for your plot.   You can create what they call a Wish List,  at that stage you’re not committed to buying any of the upgrades, it’s just a place to add the things you think you might be interested in. then when you visit the sales office for your options meeting, they will discuss the Wish List with you and go into things in more detail and will take a deposit from you if you want to go ahead with any of the upgrades.  

With regard to prices of upgrades… Well I will be here all day if I listed all of those .. and they’re going to be specific to your plot and presumably area of the country as well.   

There were upgrades available for kitchen and bathrooms.   These were by far the biggest cost.  The house comes with a  “silver” kitchen and bathroom as standard.  When we were negotiating our offer, we were able to get them to include a upgrade to a Gold kitchen package.  The silver kitchen basically does not include integrated appliances.  And I think a very limited choice of worktops and cupboard fronts. The gold kitchen includes integrated dishwasher, fridge freezer, and washer / dryer, however because your house type is much larger, you may get a separate tumble dryer ,  I am not sure.  As I said, I can only give you advice about my own plot.  I think the oven splashback is included in the upgrade.  And under-cupboard lights.   There was another upgrade available above the gold one, I dread to think of the price of that.  I think the only difference was more cupboard front choices available and maybe an induction hob.  

If we had not been able to get them to include this as a sales incentive then it would have cost around £4000 to go with the upgrade but again that is specific to our house type.  

We also managed to get them to include flooring and carpets throughout as an incentive.  This flooring is Amtico Spacia.. we did not get a choice about this although obviously got to choose from several different colours.  The carpet is Abingdon stain free, again there was several to choose from.  Because there were so many different options with the flooring, I can’t really give all the different prices but needless to say they were pretty crazy…! 

We just knew that we would want to have the flooring down for when we moved in, partly because we’ve got a dog but also because we just wanted it to be complete… and I’m really glad that they were willing to include this as an incentive for us.   

There were numerous bathroom upgrade too,  ours did not come with a shower over the bath as standard, that was an optional extra and over £1000.   We’ve not gone for this one because we have an ensuite in the main bedroom, as I’m sure you will.  I think with a bathroom upgrade you get a different choice of tiles…not totally sure on this one.  

We also had some ceiling spotlights as a sales incentive… Some in the kitchen and in the main bathroom.  These were a crazy price of over £100 each.  

Other upgrades included things like changing the standard sockets from white to chrome.. moving the sockets to different locations.. extra sockets… wiring for an outside light.. outside tap… all very expensive as you can imagine.  I can’t remember everything off the top of my head.  

Upgrades that we have paid for are an outside tap and wiring for an outside light.  

There were a couple of things that we thought would be upgrades but will actually not available at all - fitting of a bathroom mirror with a built-in light, so we will look at getting a Sparky in after completion to do one for us.  Also we wanted to pay DW to fit us with an induction hob but this was not an option.. only way we would have got this would have been by doing a full blown kitchen upgrade to the highest level of kitchen (Pearl I think).

Basically… do lots of saving in preparation for reserving, and get ready to haggle!  

It is generally considered that when you reserve at such an early stage, there is less room for negotiation unfortunately.  

At the options meeting, any upgrades require a 25% deposit,  with the rest payable prior to completion.  

Are they worth it?  

We have been in the show home for our house type and compared to other pics I’ve seen on Instagram, I really feel that the kitchen upgrade is something that we definitely wanted.  It doesn’t look the best without the integrated appliances but it depends what bothers you really!  They are all massively overpriced, everything in the newbuild world is lol.  

I hope any of this information is useful to you, as I said it may be different for your particular house type. I have to say, to date, dealing with the developer has been the least stressful part of our buying and selling journey (I have another thread on here about it).  

Runningmad

Wow thank you so much for taking the time to provide all that information.
What a shame about the hob only available if you have the highest upgrade, you'd think if you're willing to pay they'd just do it. 
My brother is an electrician so will get a few bits done after. 
I was keen to get shower over the bath but as you say there's one in en suite which will be fine to start with. 
Yes we were told at this stage they don't really need to offer insentives, as there is so much interest.
Good luck with your purchase I'll see if I can find your other posts, thanks again. 

stressedout45

No probs at all. I voice-type so it didn’t actually take that long… wanted to include info that I wish I had known prior to reserving… it is difficult to find out much online.  

Actually I’ve only just realised that the OP was a while ago now…! 🙈 
Thanks - just waiting for that elusive exchange day, the sooner it’s here the better, and then can actually look forward to things properly. 

Good luck with your purchase also!