To make an offer on a New Build home?

[hillarypcof]

Or is this just cheeky?
Not really sure on etiquette as new to it all!

Partner and I will be using Help to Buy for a new build home. House is £370,000 but we have been told by various sources that an offer of 90% (£333,000) is how a lot of house sales go... does anybody have any experience?

That’s a big price drop. You can make an offer on new builds but they are unlikely to accept that much unless they’re having trouble selling them. Much more likely to include some extras in the price like flooring instead.

The worst that can happen is they say no, so I would do it. A developer/builder isn't going to be sentimental over selling a house, so I would treat it as a negotiation. I've never bought a new build, but have noticed that quite a few in my local area have been on the market for over a year now, so new houses don't always get snapped up and can be overpriced.

There’s no “etiquette” as such when it comes to buying a home. You can offer whatever you want to offer. I have to admit that your proposed offer does seem on the low side compared to the purchase price but I am firmly of the opinion that if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

When it comes to buying and selling property you have to 100% do it with your head and not your heart. I would say go ahead with your offer. The developer isn’t going to be offended, they’ll just say no if they don’t want to accept. Then you counter offer etc and hopefully you’ll eventually come to a mutually agreeable price.

Seems low but what's the worst that can happen?

You wont lose anything by asking.

Sometimes the price on a new build isn't negotiable but they can add in the extras for free such as carpets, garden turfed, better taps and tiles etc. This can be worth thousands.

Seems a little low, depends where you are. We got about 7% off ours 2 years ago and they were still building on the estate. Because of Covid and where we live (countryside but easily commutable) they now can't build them fast enough and are not offering any more discounts.

Depends, depends, depends. Always worth a try. We bought a new house 12 months ago, part of a terrace of large townhouses, within a larger development of blocks of flats and communal gardens. All pretty much the same, priced more or less the same to start with and way out of our budget. We paid 25% less than the original price due to a combination of them being overpriced to start with, badly marketed, slow to sell and then the developer wanting to shift the last few houses.