Has anyone ever bought a new build with part exchange? How to haggle?

[LoobyLou1976]

Hello all.
Looking to move from a 3 bed semi to a new build 4 bed detached house. There are two developments that we are going to see, one has some houses which are finished and ready to move into, and the other development is still under construction. We would be looking to take advantage of a part exchange offer to avoid the hassle of selling our house. For what its worth, I think our house would sell no problem on the open market, because it is in a desirable area and is very nice, on a corner plot etc.
Has anyone any experience of buying part exchange? Did you get the full market value for your old house from the builder? Was it worth it to avoid the stress of selling your home on the open market/estate agent fees etc? Were you able to negotiate any 'extras' or discounts on your new home as well as the part exchange offer? Specifically it's Miller Homes and Bellway Homes.
We have an appointment in a few days with the site that has some finished homes, I'm hoping they will be keen to sell them and so more open to offering discounts. One is a 4 bed on at approx £290K, and the other a slightly bigger 4 bed at 314K which I prefer. Do you think it would be incredibly cheeky to tell them we would buy the bigger one if they dropped the price to 300K, and we could exchange immediately? As they are already built I don't see how I can haggle for better finishings/kitchen etc.
Sorry for all the questions, this is all very new to me as we have lived in our current home for 15 years and it was only the second home we bought together.

Any tips for haggling with a developer?
Thanks.

Have you had your house valued by independent Estate agents to see how much it's worth? You won't get the full market value if you're doing a part exchange. We were going to do this years ago and the company offered a lot less than we could have got on the open market. Because of that and various other things we decided not to go ahead.

Years ago ny parents did this. They were arms to haggle hard and got a decent price for their house (which they were struggling to sell) and also managed to get 15k off the asking price of the new property. However, this was one of the last 3 properties on the development and during the last recession so interest was low. I think it will come back to how much interest they have in these properties and where they are in development. Best of luck though!

It does depend on the market where you are really... but generally they don't give you market price ... they may say they will in the adverts but their price is based on a valuation survey not estate agents values (like a mortgage valuation)

Eg think market price £250k you might get £225k but save as no agents fees etc so effectively it's worth more like £230k and a quick sale with potential savings on legal fees as well

They also usually have lots of t&cs that you have to meet eg your house less than 75% of the new house, not ex council, no planning/building regs issues etc.

Theres so much than can change the situation.

Usually when you are doing part ex, they will have 3 local estate agents come round to value your house and then go in the middle of the 3 valuations.

Often part ex, means they wont give you anything extras etc. But that cab depend on how popular the sites are. If they are confident they will sell everything they have available, quickly, there womt be much negotiation room.

If they are struggling or struggling to sell the last one on sit and want to move on, then there will be some room.

I doubt you would get part ex, 14k off AND extras.

I bought a new build about 10 years ago. Last one on site and was quite expensive. They wanted to pack up and leave. We got 40k cash back. They were really desperate. But that took extras off the table. Which was fine.

Another new house we bought, we did part ex on. It was ine if the last ones of that type. Exterior garage, rather than internal, so the house had more room and it had the biggest garden. Because they knew it would sell, it was part ex or extras. Not both.

We did part ex - they were open about valuations received - we got better price for house yet to be built rather than ones on development already there. Certainly a less stressful way of doing things!

We did a part exchange with Miller Homes 8 years ago. We got a decent price for our home, pretty much what we were expecting.

They stipulated at the time that, with part exchange, they expected you to be ready to complete in 5 weeks if the house was ready to move into. Our mortgage lender messed up when the new house was massively undervalued and wouldn't allow us to borrow the amount we wanted (even though we weren't anywhere near the maximum amount we could borrow). We went back to Miller and said that to proceed we'd need a reduction of £5000 or we'd have to pull out. They came back to us and said that if we could complete by the end of the month they'd reduce the price by £15000 as they needed the money from a sale by the end of the month so that they could begin work on the next phase.

The mortgage company then decided that there had indeed been an error on their part and we could borrow the full amount which we didn't need by that time.

As it turned out, our solicitor and building society pulled out all stops and from start to finish, we completed within 24 days.

As for extras, as the build was complete there was nothing that could be done but the house had been carpeted throughout a couple of days before we viewed it for the first time and the gardens were turfed and landscaped, those were a massive bonus.

We bought a new build in December with Linden Homes in Yorkshire and part exchanged a 4 bed detached with our 3 bed end terrace. We actually got a pretty good deal because, they are only able to offer a certain percentage of the property you wish to buy from them and we worked this in our favour, along with a few other factors.

Our house was on the market at 235k and the house we wanted to buy was 329k but, they advised they wouldn't be able to part exchange at that value because, our home had to be worth no more than 70% of the price of the new home that we wanted to purchase.

We had our house on the market for a while and knew that we would be unlikely to get asking price for it so, we advised we would be willing to 'take a hit' on the price, to make it 70%. However, Linden also dropped the price of the new house to 319,995 in the meantime as, we worked out that it was their year end and they had targets to hit.

We told them we would be willing to accept 224k (70%) for our house, with the added bonus of turf in the garden (it was a big garden so this would have been quite an expense!), tiled flooring in the bathrooms and kitchens and carpets throughout the property. We also, clung on to a passing comment that the sales rep had made regarding 'being able to do us a little something on our stamp duty'. He tried to tell us that we were no longer entitled to this because of their other gestures but, we 'played a good game' (in the sales rep's words) and managed to get them to agree to this also.

After they bought our house, they put it straight back on the market at 235k and it sat there for months and months until, it eventually sold for 220k. We seemed to have got a corker of a deal because, we saved on estate agent fees too by part exchanging.

As others have said, it obviously depends on where you are and the market you are in but, I would say gauge the situation and see if they need you more than you need them. We were told there was someone interested in our plot but, the rep had 'promised it to us first' - He even had a pretend file on his desk that he picked up and said 'Woopsie, I can't let you see that, it's the other buyers details!' However, I am 99% sure no such buyer existed after we, on several occasions, threatened to walk away and they rolled over on our demands pretty much immediately.

Sorry for the essay... Best of luck! x

It depends on the builder. Taylor Wimpey offered us peanuts. Our problem was it was a 1 bedroom flat in a tiny village and there were several on the market. Barrat offered us £20k more than TW and through on carpets, legal fees and appliances. We wouldn’t have made as much as their offer on the open market. Can you do the home move scheme where they pay to market it etc in exchange for you agreeing to the purchase. We did that this time and had 12 weeks to sell, we got our sale in time and it was simple with no estate agency fees etc.

We are currently going through part ex at the moment - and no, you won’t get full market value for your house, it’ll be as cheap as possible because they just want to make sure they can flog it on afterwards.

You’ll get 3 estate agents come round to do valuations. They’ll do best case price, mid range and absolutely bargain basement price, which is what they tend to base it on because they don’t want to be lumbered with it.

Plus also don’t forget that your house can be worth no more than 70% of the house you are buying - so for those two reasons alone, it often means you don’t get the best price for your house - which if you are relying on a certain price to make your mortgage work - can be difficult

That said, the benefits of PX are great, no chain, no estate agent fees and can be swift. So it’s how important those factors are to you

The only other thing to bear in mind is that often you exchange / complete within 28 days normally and then your mortgage provider will want you to move within 30 days of completion so it’s whether a quick turnaround is a good thing or not

It’s swings and roundabouts really- we did a power move where they organise and sell your house for you, we got stamp duty (>5k) legal and estate agent fees, flooring, turf, fences and outside tap. Was a great deal as one of last houses. We were pretty confident we would sell tho, it was a risk because we couldn’t reserve our house till we’d got an offer but sold within 14 days. If we’d of part ex’d they said we wouldn’t get any other offers. Good luck, it’s really stressful