Buying a NewBuild - Incentives / Discounts?

[chlosafine]

Hello all

We have sold our house to a first time buying and are looking to secure a plot on a David Wilson Homes development. Has anyone any experience of negotiations with housebuilders?

DH works in sales and reckoned he negotiated us a good deal. However when we could see all our neighbours bought prices on zoopla we could see it varied massively, and ours wasn't so brilliant. Though you cant see what other incentives they had.

We had part exchange (and got a fair price, no estate agent fees, no removal costs etc), which they say is an incentive.

We had them pay 50% of our stamp duty, plus some off price.

Others got vouchers for fittings /upgrades etc which probably is cost effective for the builder if that saves you money you would have spent anyway (plus avoid vat on things too as part of non-vatable purchase price).

The people who paid the lowest by far were the last house to be sold. The highest price paid was the first house to sell.

Extra patio, hateful job & they never put enough in.

I looked at dealing with then in the past. They are very tough to deal with and we gave up.

We've just been doing this (but were part exchaging too) with a different company. My advice - you get a better deal towards the end of a development as they have more room to move on price without devaluing future plots. Also better deals once roof is on.

Do as much research as you can - check land registry for sold prices if other plots (assuming it's not at the start of the build).

Be aware that some mortgage lenders don't like incentives and will devalue the house by the cost of those so make sure you know your lenders stance on them.

To give you some idea, almost identical houses where I live sold for between £440,000 and £380,000 (highest price houses sold first by nearly a year, in a rising market too)