To ask for a discount on a new build home?

[Lola528]

We have lived overseas for 15 years and now DH been reassigned to a project back “home” (subjective .. home is where the heart is!), we’ve rented for the last 15 years but feel it’s now time to buy. We’ve seen some fab new homed we love and I’ve read you can ask for a discount, but how do you even start with that? Any Real Estate pris around who can advise what’s reasonable vs being CF? We ideally need to move by end September and have a mortgage in place with no property chain to fulfil. Are we likely to get a decent percentage off it at least some extra inclusions?

Really clueless re UK housing market tbh in terms of purchase. Have been in England for 4 years and before that Middle East and Australia. Help!

All advice welcome x

We have lived overseas for 15 years and now DH been reassigned to a project back “home” (subjective .. home is where the heart is!), we’ve rented for the last 15 years but feel it’s now time to buy. We’ve seen some fab new homed we love and I’ve read you can ask for a discount, but how do you even start with that? Any Real Estate pris around who can advise what’s reasonable vs being CF? We ideally need to move by end September and have a mortgage in place with no property chain to fulfil. Are we likely to get a decent percentage off it at least some extra inclusions?

Really clueless re UK housing market tbh in terms of purchase. Have been in England for 4 years and before that Middle East and Australia. Help!

All advice welcome x

Oops .. managed to post twice sorry 🤦🏻‍♀️

The housing market is negotiable.
You can offer any price you like on property.
The vendor can then accept or reject that offer.
Just make the offer, see what they say.

We are also looking to buy a new home.. It depends on how desirable the homes are and how fast they are selling. The estate that we are buying from is quite small (less than 50 houses) so we can keep up to speed with how quickly or not the houses are selling. I was advised on here that you ar more likely to get extras included rather than money off, because other buyers can get the hump if they find out toy have paid less

There’s been a couple of these threads recently in property.

We got a discount - 25k off asking price, plus they paid our stamp duty & threw in 20k of extras. BUT they wanted the house gone. It was one of the last five that needed to be sold before their financial year end and we were in a position to move quickly.

A lot of people will warn you off new builds, but we have been very similar to you - living abroad for a number of years with no base and now returning for work to a place that isn’t home. It’s been the best way to meet people and make friends, and there is a real community feel, rather than moving into somewhere more established where it can be more difficult to meet neighbours etc.

Offer what you want, they can only say no! You’re chain free so that’s an incentive.
If a property cost 300k, for example you can start at £287. Then they may make a counter offer. By all means negotiate on fixtures and fittings too.

Yes, I’ve heard similar. This is also a small development of around 40 houses. The Agent reckons she’s sold 15 in the last month, but how much if that is “patter” vs what’s real? There’s been no viewings understandably so hard to know. Re the ‘just ask them’ - of course, but I don’t know if being utterly unreasonable to go 20% or less/more, knowing they will probably haggle back! Grr I hate this adulting malarkey.

You could start much lower than the asking price... the asking price for a new build is a price... everything is negotiable. Plus they won’t take it personally as they don’t live in it, they are a company.

I bought a new-build for asking price in spring 1988. Mine was the second-last to be sold. I found out a few years later that the buyer of the last one asked for and got one third off the asking price.

Depends if it’s one of the first or last to be sold. A friend of mine is senior for one of the big house building firms and even he couldn’t get discount. The reason being that people can see sold prices and they effectively devalue the whole estate if they discount for one person.....nobody else will pay more.

If it’s one of the last they’ll be less bothered. They may also need to accept if there’s a house price slump they may need to discount all of them.

It’s all about negatiation, we managed to get £15k knocked off our new build, the only reason they wouldn’t go any lower was because they’d just accepted the same value on a semi-detached house of the same style (ours was detached). However we did manage to get them to include carpets/ flooring and curtains throughout as well which saved us a fortune.

DD bought a new build. Got a small discount as it was one of the last, and also got various upgrades on fixtures and fittings, mostly just by asking.

Agree with PPs - you are much more likely to be successful if you ask them to pay stamp duty or upgrade you on things for free rather than price reduction as they aren’t public knowledge. With the predicted state of the housing market you may well be successful. You’ve nothing to lose by asking either way.

Yes our local new dev have offered free stamp duty up to £7k, or a free £10k John Lewis voucher, and not a 5% discount for NHS staff. Imagine they give a cash discount too.

I’m not convinced though. New builds are more expensive for much less space around here. You are paying sometimes £80k extra for the ‘high spec’.

Thanks everyone, lots of great feedback. There us some debate with DH as to if we should rent for ) months or so to see what happens in the market, but I’d rather not have to move twice. Also, youngest (13) still in school so if we rent it will limit where we could then move to without having to disrupt his schooling again. Guess we have to just put a stake in the ground and hope for the best!

Rent for 6 months or so*

Offer as low as you want - try 20%, it's going to be tough post-Covid - as it's not s if you are going to insult a home owner, it's just a devloper's sales bod.

They may have a target to hit and be willing to take a lower offer; they'll counter offer anyway. As a PP said, see waht else they'll chuck in too - stamp duty, landscaping etc.

Be as cheeky as you like, it's just a business deal to them and if you don't ask, you don't get.

Can't hurt to try. You could also try to get some extras included. We managed to get them to pay our stamp duty, floor coverings throughout (tiles & carpet at no extra cost), upgraded doors and bathroom tiling, fitted wardrobes etc.

Just be sure to check everything works before accepting the keys. Check all the windows open and close properly, taps, paint finishes etc - don't let them rush you through the handover.