Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 07, 2009 9:10 am Haggling with a builder is a bit different to haggling for a car or TV etc. The major difference between a house and another item, is that one is off the shelf, easy to compare and you always no exactly what your getting and there are usually never any stock issues, also with a car or TV there is no love lost if you only make a small amount. Many sales people work on the principle that any sale is a good sale, even if you make minimal money. With a house you should actually want your builder to make money otherwise he may just put you down the bottom of the que. This could end up costing you more money in additional rent etc. What you have done is great in saving at least $6K. I don’t now if other will agree with me on this one, as I am also taking a different view to what I normally take, as usually I like to haggle. However sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture of what we are all trying to achieve, and if the builder is quoting a fair and reasonable price that is usually the perfect start to a long relationship. Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 2Apr 07, 2009 9:27 am We did not haggle but we did mention that considering we had built with this builder before that we would like to use our own cabinet maker which they do not generally allow owners trades onsite. This was our haggle. Desmond, I am guessing your price is a base price you were looking at and not a finished price, I wasn't sure you had been to prestart yet. Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 3Apr 07, 2009 9:32 am Hi We are comparing two builders at the moment, both have a similar floorplan that we changed to our likings, M2s are exactly the same. We gave B2 the Total Price of B1 and they came out 8K higher. Today we received an e-mail that B2 is prepared to lower the price with 5K in order to close the gap. Must also say that B2 has a better name in building, so maybe better material and in future a faster sale of the property. cheers Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 4Apr 07, 2009 12:31 pm hi annilies, how did you end up going? even though you are now $5000.00 less than b2's original quote do you still have to lose nice things to get under budget... 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 5Apr 07, 2009 1:32 pm We negotiated $30k off our construction contract with the builder and I can assure you they ARE still making money, or they simply wouldn't do it, no-one is that stoopid! Building Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13002 Site start: 8th July 2009 Handover: 11/12/2009! 5 months total build time. 40 sqs of luxuary...Bliss! Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 6Apr 07, 2009 5:16 pm pinkfairymagic We negotiated $30k off our construction contract with the builder and I can assure you they ARE still making money, or they simply wouldn't do it, no-one is that stoopid! How much did 30k represent as a percentage of the original quote? Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 7Apr 07, 2009 5:30 pm i am in the same boat... negotiating a better price... they asked us, what incentive do we want to give the tender a go? hard to answer since we wanted a reduction in the construction cost... to what extent.. we have not decided yet. Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 8Apr 07, 2009 6:17 pm I didn't haggle, but the quote was slightly over our budget so I approached it a different way. We had already agreed about a $5k 'discount'. I said something like this: "the quote is pretty good, just a little over our budget. We have decided to remove the bi-fold window to save $3.5k, we are just looking through the quote to find another $4k." the sales consultant then spoke to the powers that be and came back with a additional $4k discount for us. We just end up using the discount in upgrades, so it still ends up back to the builder. Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 9Apr 07, 2009 10:07 pm Yup! I haggled quite a bit .. Its true they work towards your budget .. You wont believe it .. the 1st tender with a certain builder for a smaller home was greater than the last haggled tender for a bigger home with the same builder! .. Its THAT much fabricated.. you can never know what costs they added for what! .. Frankly at the end, it doesn't matter if its inside your budget .. you should be "happy" to pay that cost whether it meant a higher base price, lower site costs.. or costly additions but with lower price etc .. I did end up narrowing it down to just 2 builders and then tilting towards one and telling him to match a few things that the other is offering, if you do i'll go with you .. and thats what happened.. got some extras for free and a "discount" off the final price .. and like i said i dont really care where it came off so long as i dont have to pay extra .. Now this doesn't work for everyone, and not for every builder.. just depends if they want your business that bad or not --- I don't have a signature - just this sentence saying that I don't have one - that'll do! Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 10Apr 08, 2009 2:46 am I have heard that its almost impossible to haggle over the price of land, specially round the new estates in my area "The Ponds" (Kellyville Ridge NSW) . I have heard that people are actually camping out overnight when they do a new release. Can anyone share how much they were able to reduce the price of the land from the asking price? Even helpful has anyone manage to haggle the price off a land in "The Ponds"? Building at Kellyville Ridge - First Home buyer 11/5/10 - Port-a-loo delivered hahahaha 14/5/10 - Land was scraped (NEED TO GET RID OF ALL THIS UNWANTED DIRT) 20/5/10 - Concrete Piers all 45 of them. 21/5/10 - Plumbing 27/5/10 - concrete slab completed Re: HAGGLING - Did you do it ? 11Apr 08, 2009 2:47 pm Land at The Ponds .. $0 possible!! --- I don't have a signature - just this sentence saying that I don't have one - that'll do! No the fireplace doesn’t work. It’s been enclosed. I’m not sure what was removed, as it was done quite some time ago - well before what I can see with photos online… 2 11589 Looking to start the journey of becoming an owner builder in SA. Feeling pretty (overly) confident on the building and construction details, but really struggling to find… 0 8422 No. It's not original. Circa early to mid 90s would be my guess and maybe even as late as early 2000s 1 6635 |