Has anyone bought property off plan?

inferno

inferno

inferno

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23 May 2004
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Hi guys,

I recently sold my property so I'm looking at what to do next, does anyone have any experience with buying property off plan in the UK, are you able to negotiate a discount or are the building companies just happy to sell at full price?

Anyone with any experience I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks
 
Yes, I bought two houses off-plan and one flat. In all three the neighbours didn't buy off-plan and seemed to pay an extra 20% on top of what we did. However, we did get right in at the start and this was some time ago. One of my friends recently purchased a place that was still technically off-plan but only just and didn't really get an concessions at all really from what I can tell. I would wager popularity would have a great deal to do with it. The ones we got weren't in the best of areas and were purely to rent out.
 
Depending on where you are you may struggle to find a developer doing this any more. Round me house prices are moving so fast, and houses in such short supply that developers are waiting until the last possible moment before pricing houses. There are some developments where the houses are almost complete yet still without a price.
 
I'm not so sure about discounts as such, but some of the bigger developers do tend to pay a contribution towards your legal fees and depending on the size/value of the property you propose to buy they are sometimes willing to negotiate some incentives such as a free upgraded kitchen and appliances.
 
Never pay full price on a new build house.

Ours was up for 240 and we got it for 209 with the builder putting 12k towards our deposit.

We also got free carpets throughout
 
Second this - Having worked for a large UK developer - other than prime plots or sites in very sought after locations (tended to be smaller/bespoke sites) discounts from advertised price was always expected.

Anyone who didn't tended to result in a very nice bonus for the sales person.

Buying from Plan was dying a death when I left the industry years ago as many people were moving in and finding their neighbours next door had bought from plan pre-melt down and had paid a lot more than the people who had bought later - may have changed now.

Markup on some houses (Construction/Commercial & Retail) was around 70%-230% - our sites though large were mostly high spec/semi bespoke type developments so can only imagine the mark-up on more cloned style mass-market developments would be greater.

Same applies to the custom/added features.

One thing I did notice back then was many houses who had not paid for Cat5/6 cabling had it installed but holes not put in walls to expose it - word got around and some residents started punching holes in walls to check!






neil3k said:
Never pay full price on a new build house.

Ours was up for 240 and we got it for 209 with the builder putting 12k towards our deposit.

We also got free carpets throughout
Click to expand...
 
Bought our first house completely off plan.

The house we are looking at is being built at present, you can call off plan as we haven't walked around our physical house yet!

With regards to discounts it depends where you are, to be honest houses are in big demand round here so not much discounts are offered, we did however get £10k towards stamp duty and extras.
 
Totally dependent on location, you're wasting your time if you think you are going to get some massive discount in the South East, the market is so hot at the moment and not looking like it's going to slow down anytime soon.
 
Primelocation.com:
The concept is to buy a property off-plan at current prices and when the development is completed a year or so later, the capital appreciation will have made it worth much more. In a strong market, as we’ve seen recently, profits of between 10% and 20% can be made from an initial 10% deposit. As a result, demand for off-plan property from developers remains strong.

The earlier you get access to the property for sale, the greater the chance of securing one of the better units and of getting a discount on the price. Your negotiating position should be determined by the demand the development is attracting. The higher the demand, the less chance you have of negotiating the price down.
 
maccapacca said:
Totally dependent on location, you're wasting your time if you think you are going to get some massive discount in the South East, the market is so hot at the moment and not looking like it's going to slow down anytime soon.
Click to expand...

This.

I've recently bought a off plan flat, there were 1600 people going for 11 flats so no chance of a discount lol.
 
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