Hi All
I am considering buying a new build house from Ward Homes based in Kent. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of them? I have been offered a deal of 5% off the purchase price or stamp duty paid, legal fees and vouchers towards their "choices list" for carpets, flooring,appliances, floor tiling and "extra's"/upgrades to the same amount I would get for 5% off.

I couldn't believe it when they said carpets, flooring, bathroom flooring and appliances etc weren't included.

They are being careful to only build and release afew houses at a time and I am interested in only one they have left. I feel the price is high for the area but they do appear to be selling....

I see on other forums people have got much more off for their new builds but this was around 2008.

I have worked out the cost of having the house properly furbished would cost approx £18000.

I think you can only get snagging done after exchange.

Thanks for reading and any advice you can give.

Sparky

I guess you've answered your own questions really - if they're not deperate to sell then they won't discount much.

Couldn't you buy a similar 'used' house for less money anyway and not have to spend £18K to get it liveble?

New houses always seem overpriced, sometimes a lot. You're also taking a bit of a gamble of how the area will turn out.

Pretty much standard practice for a new build unless it's the showhome they're offloading.

Dependent on size and spec of build I would however expect as an absolute minimum a hob and oven as standard.

As to price, if you don't ask, you don't get.

They will either deal at your offer price or not.

In 2001 I bought our house for 265k reduced from an asking of 318k

it was December, and I beleive they were keen to sell this particular hosue before they could release the next "batch" in the development. we had also sold and were ready to go.

My original offer of £250k was rejected but they came back at 300k we went fromt here and thankfully got a very good deal. This was Barratts.

When I looked on rightmove at what others had paid we were not the only ones at the time to secure hefty dicounts from the list prices.I feel that there are always discounts available unless things are selling fast off plan, however each situation will be very different.

A word of warning about new builds. Ours originally was bought for 225k (negotiated price) in 2006.

We bought for 50k less than that this year.

Hence my earlier comment. Although, to be fair, some areas have dropped those kind of percentages on 'used' houses in that timeframe

Crikey hadn't thought about parking issues and people in affordable housing spoiling it. Thanks!

You don't really need to worry too much about affordable housing, these are generally bought by decent working people who still need to qualify for a mortgage. It's the social housing you need to worry about. Social housing seems to be the new description for council housing.

We bought a Barratt apartment in London around Christmas, 3 years ago, so the 'height' (should that be depth?) of the crash.

We were only interested in one of the plots (of about 100) and the asking price of £450k (when we first looked) didn't seem too bad for the area.

When the mortgage surveyor went for a look a few months later (we hadn't agreed anything at this point) and builders were in 'trouble', the valuation was rather different.

We paid £300k in the end, so a nice 33% discount with a 'free' parking space etc. Out of interest, one recently sold for £408k so they have recovered, to some extent.

The moral of the story is that it is all timing and Barratts had sold less than 50% of them when we bought ours and it looked like no one was ever going to be able to afford somewhere to live again, with the 'recession'. The way I saw it; you couldn't get anything remotely comparable for £300k in the area and if I could have bought more (one guy bought a whole floor), even at the time, I would have done.

So, my experience is that Barratts are pretty good with discounts/ negotiating and, as with any house, it's always worth going in low and 'pushing' them. However, at the peak new builds were definitely overpriced and banks were getting wise to it and really didn't like giving mortgages (on high ratios) as the recession set in. I would expect them to be more realistically priced these days.

But my experience is right after the peak/ crash and may not apply so much now. If it seems like good value for the area, you are getting the spec you want and are happy to pay the price, then that is what it's worth to you.

Good luck with it all!

From personal experience of a new build;

Get carpets/flooring done yourself by a good local company. We did and the quality was significantly better to our neighbours who went with the developer (Bryant)

Social housing on our development is fine, really nice people. It's the tennants who rent the privately owned flats who are the nightmare neighbours as they are normally there short term (6 months to a year) and don't really give a ste about the area.

Parking always a nightmare as most families seem to have two cars but only one space