MattW

All depends on a whole host of factors. the plot, the builder, time of year, the stage of the development, number of sales in the last week.

Some builders seem to discount more than others, a nice plot at the beginning of a development where demand is strong isn't going to see much in the way of incentive.

Best bet is to ask when a house is almost compete and still available. They don't like to have stock houses on their books for too long.


Edited to say, sometimes a builder will throw in carpets and turf for example, and prepared to give that away to anyone, getting cash off is a different proposition.

LG John

If its a big house builder try and find out when their financial year ends and then buy in the last month/few weeks as they will be more than happy to sell at a reduced price. This is because at the end of the financial year most (all) big house builders look to sell up as much stock as they can to increase their cash flow thereby helping the figures along and, in turn, increasing their borrowing power with the banks for the next financial year.

David Lock

I was in a similar position for my dear old mum some years back. They were building a warden-living-in place with a load of flats - fancy brochures, you know the sort of thing. I went down and saw the site agent/salesman and did a reasonable deal (or so I thought) for a cash sale with no extras like carpets. This was then overuled by the site guy's boss. After a big row I still got something off the asking and carpets. Bear in mind that carpets will just be the cheapest contract carpets that they can get away with but they usually look OK and will last for a while. Kitchen stuff is often negotiable.

I am sure Saxo is right but you do risk losing out, of course, if you get the timing wrong. Also if you do proceed keep in touch with the agent/builders if you can as they'll be a myriad of little things wrong with the build and a quiet word with the guys on site could save your relative a lot of grief. Good luck. dl

TopBanana

Good advice. Same is true for the end of each financial quarter, albeit to a slightly lesser extent.

JTaylor

As well as month ends within retail. Kitchen, furniture and carpet vendors are all chasing monthly target bonus and will generally offer significant discount at month end.

what would scooby do

All the above about year end and month end sales is 100% correct. I did the same. Ended up getting stamp duty paid and deposit paid. Worst case is fully fitted carpets but they are usually rubbish quality.

Devildog

Depends on desirability. We've bought new build a few times, and there has always been a waiting list.

What is pretty much always a constant (in Scotland at least) is that the first releases are always cheaper than the latter ones. The latter ones, however, are often better built, as the build problems get ironed out as the development progresses.

We made great money in our last sale - but somewhat less than those who had sold phase 1 houses..

Might be different in England though.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

just be firm with them, especially in light of the current market with the great house price crash thats about to hit us!!!

A good thing to look at is when they started building the houses in that area, find the price of what they went for then, and tell them you only want to pay that. If the first houses are a good fews months old then house prices will have increased and the builders will generally increase the costs accordingly even though they already have the materials and they wouldnt have increased by the same anyway.

I live on a new build estate since Jan and there are still houses being put up which are smaller than mine but for more money (there were smaller houses available when we bought ours for a bit less money so the prices have increased)

Getting things like kitchen and bathroom flooring etc is good and the carpets arent too bad either despite earlier comments. Our home was made by Elite and they have a fitting centre where you can go and choose your carpets etc colour and style and also flooring. Saying that though sometimes it depends on the stage of the build etc.

richardg

month/year ends aren't relevant to all developers, but still worth investigating. higher sales figures are a useful reporting tool, especially where marketing budgets can be used to provide enabling incentives (carpets, stamp duty, 5% deposit paid, "pay off your credit card" etc).

talk to the seller/their agent and remind them your relative will be a cash buyer. ask them to put a deal together and if it's not attractive enough, let them know what more they need to offer

marky1

I bought a new build in central london in 2003 for 30% below the asking. When buying always remember you can raise your bid but you can't lower it. Go in low and be aggresive, you never know what might happen.