What levers are there? How best to approach negotiations without offending the developer? New builds in the area I am looking at seem to have a 15-20% premium attached to them per square foot and so I don't want to pay full price for the place we have found.
Somebody put an offer in for 9% less than asking and was told to do one apparently. It's been on the market since September and is the show-home at the moment.
We are thinking to offer around 4% under asking a week or so into lockdown 2.0. The hope is that they might be a bit more flexible during this. The estate agent hinted that 4% under would be a good starting point, which makes me think similar units might have gone for a similar price.
Angles/thoughts I have to enter the negotiations with are:
Ultimately, I am prepared to walk away if they don't budge at all. We could go ahead with the property at full price but I don't want to. I think we'd just be leaving money on the table.
There are two other incomplete units in the building which are just like this and so I am not too worried about them all being snapped up overnight by other buyers, however, this is our favourite.
Any advice? Is what I have said above complete crap? How would you go about it? Should I say things like 'we love the property', 'we want to make it work' etc or will this work in their favour (I thought this might sweeten them up a bit and show we are not just bargain hunting)?
Somebody put an offer in for 9% less than asking and was told to do one apparently. It's been on the market since September and is the show-home at the moment.
We are thinking to offer around 4% under asking a week or so into lockdown 2.0. The hope is that they might be a bit more flexible during this. The estate agent hinted that 4% under would be a good starting point, which makes me think similar units might have gone for a similar price.
Angles/thoughts I have to enter the negotiations with are:
- We love the property but it is a bit of a stretch for us at the current price but we would like to make it work
- We love the property but we think it is somewhat overpriced. We see the amount we have offered as fair, given comparable properties on the market
- Whilst we are ready to transact we are in no rush
- We're worried about the risk of immediate negative equity given once we buy it we'll have a much smaller market to resell it to due to no HTB being available on the secondary market. This, coupled with the uncertainty of Brexit and now covid (given we're in a 2nd lockdown) has made us quite nervous. We do however really like the property and we hope we can make it work with the offer made
- We think it needs some work doing (we actually do) in terms of the kitchen and lighting, would you accept 3.5% under asking if you are able to carry out this work for us? Or accept 4% under asking and we would pay the cost of materials to have the work done?
- (Incentives - are these still a thing)? We could pay 3.5% under asking if you could cover the remaining stamp duty.
- We'd be prepared to pay 3% under asking if you could give us an additional parking space
Ultimately, I am prepared to walk away if they don't budge at all. We could go ahead with the property at full price but I don't want to. I think we'd just be leaving money on the table.
There are two other incomplete units in the building which are just like this and so I am not too worried about them all being snapped up overnight by other buyers, however, this is our favourite.
Any advice? Is what I have said above complete crap? How would you go about it? Should I say things like 'we love the property', 'we want to make it work' etc or will this work in their favour (I thought this might sweeten them up a bit and show we are not just bargain hunting)?
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