Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 29, 2014 6:27 pm Hi everyone, I have been lurking the forum for a few weeks now trying to gather information and ideas for our build with Henley. We are wanting to build the Monterey Belle Q2 and have already added 65k+ to the base price. We are just out of budget but don't want to delete anything more than I already have if we can help it! Can anyone please share their experiences on negotiating upgrades/price reduction with Henley? We have paid the 850 holding deposit to lock in base price before the most recent price rise. Any advice on moving forward is much appreciated. Thanks!! Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 2Apr 04, 2014 7:52 pm Hi Sydoow I'm not sure that any builder actually has a negotiation on upgrades etc. We are also building with Henley and we were lucky to receive $3k off the base price of our home but we think that is because we moved pretty quickly with sales. We already knew what house we wanted and had the inclusions booklets already to know what we wanted. A suggestion re inclusions - you can upgrade as much as you can but the bank still needs to value your home and the more inclusions the less valuation you'll get. Unless of course you have $$ in reserve to cover for what the bank won't. Good luck with your home! It's an exciting process. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 3Apr 04, 2014 11:15 pm Thanks for the reply greycellgreen. We secured a 3k discount also getting in before the recent price rise. It's taken us a while to get to where we are but it's all coming together now. How far along are you in the process? Facades and site costs have been our dilemma. But have finally decided a facade and now working out whether its a good idea to fix our site costs or not as the want 20k to fix which is a bit more than expected. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 4May 24, 2014 9:34 am Hi Sydoow, we had started the build process with Henley a couple of years ago. We were going to build the Lexington Q1. After doing our colours etc and going to tender the house came in a little over our budget, that was with deleting as many extras as we could. We still would've had a lot to do ourselves after handover, and we me newly pregnant, we tried to see if they would knock anything off the price or throw in aircon or something. They gave us NOTHING and we walked away from a $300k contract! I really hope they've been able to give you something, because it's quite heartbreaking walking away from your dream home but for us it was the right decision at the time. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 5May 24, 2014 3:03 pm Hi PolkaDots, We ended up getting a little bit off during sales but nothing to get overly excited about. Having said that, it was better than nothing!! Our tender appt is Monday week and I am nervous about the final price, as we too have a budget.... we have had to cut back on a few things we wanted so I am hoping that pricing is under otherwise I will be shattered. Have you built your home with someone else yet? Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 6May 24, 2014 4:22 pm We are building with Plantation Homes QLD who I believe are the same company. Our experience basically was that they do NOT negotiate. We certainly tried in many different ways but the answer was always no. We pushed so hard we actually did walk away at one stage from our contract but they didn't chase us so we had to admit defeat and go back haha (we really wanted the house) good thing I'm not proud. Only way to save money is to delete upgrades and negotiate directly with the subcontractors but that can be very risky depending on who you get etc. Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65085 Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 7May 24, 2014 5:37 pm I don't believe they - or any of the major builders - negotiate this way. You could organise things yourself - eg have all the wiring done but do the lights yourself. Maybe do tiling etc. Its the upgrades that make the price go up. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 8May 24, 2014 7:44 pm You can negotiate with big builders - we negotiated with ours and got a couple of things thrown in. I guess not all do it though and it might even depend on your salesperson. I think your problem is that you have already given the money over so they already have you locked in therefore don't need to negotiate. We had 3 houses that we liked and one that we liked the most, and that builder threw things in because we said we would go with the best deal. My build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=70636&p=1161767#p1161767 Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 9May 25, 2014 9:29 am lila rose You can negotiate with big builders - we negotiated with ours and got a couple of things thrown in. I guess not all do it though and it might even depend on your salesperson. I think your problem is that you have already given the money over so they already have you locked in therefore don't need to negotiate. We had 3 houses that we liked and one that we liked the most, and that builder threw things in because we said we would go with the best deal. Yes - but - we looked about and found the "freebies" were often included by the others. Certain things may be done - so long as they don't increase costs. What sort of things did your builder "throw in" ? Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 10May 25, 2014 9:50 am Saint Mike I don't believe they - or any of the major builders - negotiate this way. You could organise things yourself - eg have all the wiring done but do the lights yourself. Maybe do tiling etc. Its the upgrades that make the price go up. Sure they do. It's whether you are successful or not that's the difference. Also will depend on the sales guy and management. I built with one of the big builders (but not Henley), they had their usual promotion of the moment, which of course is always figured into the price. The sales guy was telling us that the industry was a little slow at the time, so I just said "oh - so how much of a discount will you give us to build with you then?" We got nearly ten grand taken off. Never hurts to ask. We also negotiated on a number changes with the national admin manager prior to signing the contract - for example it cost a lot to delete the included (cheap) carpeting and tile certain areas downstairs - and we got them to drop the price significantly which then gave us the ability to do the tiling we wanted AND upgrade carpet everywhere else to their premium type and underlay whereas before we were going to do the carpet ourselves after handover to save money. Of course YMMV and you may get nothing at all! Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 11May 25, 2014 10:08 am I know all this - but H / PH give you the money off thing too - up front. We arranged some things ourselves and also had items replaced - ie we were given credits. We found there was no cost to changes - so long as it was done at the start. IMO if you get a reduction - it was probably added in before - or will be allowed for elsewhere. But - go for it - you have nothing to lose. Like buying a new car ... Mind you - we did negotiate a drop in the land price. So I guess if you were buying a house/land package - they would have room to move - ie padding. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 12May 25, 2014 10:47 am Saint Mike I know all this - but H / PH give you the money off thing too - up front. We arranged some things ourselves and also had items replaced - ie we were given credits. We found there was no cost to changes - so long as it was done at the start. IMO if you get a reduction - it was probably added in before - or will be allowed for elsewhere. There's a big difference to the builders promotional discount up front which is no real change to their overall price. They all do rotating promotions "20 grand off in March!" "free air conditioning upgrade in July!" "premium add ins at no extra cost this December!" which is a different thing altogether to negotiating a discount of your own on top of all the promotional "extras". You're still getting your Clayton's discount/upgrade/extra but you're also getting a reduction you weren't going to be getting if you didn't try it on. Getting credits for deletions is also not what I'm talking about. You'll find a full list of prices for changes to the basic inclusions and saying "I'll have tiles there instead of carpet" doesn't get you a discount when it's a priced option. When it is going to cost 6 thousand to tile a large area per their price list of options and they agree to do it for 800 instead that's NOT a credit, that's only been achieved through negotiation. The padding you are getting this through is their profit margin. Of course, the bigger your job is with them, the more luck you'll have getting some movement on their prices. Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 13May 25, 2014 2:32 pm How do you know you're actually getting a discount prior to the presentation of the full contract price? Its pretty easy to say, sure we'll take $5000 off here….meanwhile in the back room…. your site costs just went up $5000…. get what I mean? How do you actually know you are winning? Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 14May 25, 2014 6:05 pm I signed last august, got a $10k discount and both my estate and site costs also went down at tender. Only other cost they added was the provision for electricity which hopefully we'll get back at the end. Everything else was our own upgrades which were fairly priced... well except the sink lol!! Second Build, this time with Carlisle 2016, can't wait! Beckham: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67280 Canterbury: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=81175 Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 15May 25, 2014 8:03 pm sydoow Hi PolkaDots, We ended up getting a little bit off during sales but nothing to get overly excited about. Having said that, it was better than nothing!! Our tender appt is Monday week and I am nervous about the final price, as we too have a budget.... we have had to cut back on a few things we wanted so I am hoping that pricing is under otherwise I will be shattered. Have you built your home with someone else yet? Hi Sydoow, we sold the original block we had bought to build the Henley home on. We are thinking about buying another but want to get a complete cost of a build before doing anything. We are in talks with Ashford Homes for a custom design, were basing it on a design from a big builder and at the moment it's looking like it will work out cheaper than what the big builder had quoted us with all the upgrades and changes we wanted. We should find out a final price in a couple of weeks. Hope your appointment with Henley goes well Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 16May 25, 2014 11:00 pm Ari How do you know you're actually getting a discount prior to the presentation of the full contract price? Its pretty easy to say, sure we'll take $5000 off here….meanwhile in the back room…. your site costs just went up $5000…. get what I mean? How do you actually know you are winning? *sigh* Because it was after it was already quoted. And I had EVERYTHING itemised. I'm not sure why some people are hell bent to say others haven't been able to negotiate a discount. Just because you personally haven't, doesn't mean it doesn't or can't happen. I'm not naive despite what you may think. I'm a qualified architect (no longer working in field) and my family own a custom building company. Why did I go KDR with a large builder then? Because I got something I wanted at much better price than I could get for the design I did myself, even at family rates, and my funds weren't unlimited! Knowing how things work put me in a better position to negotiate. So despite a couple of people saying you can't negotiate a discount (on no basis other than their opinion), it is indeed quite possible. Completed a knock down and rebuild in northern Melbourne. Handover completed 27/09/2013 and now moved in. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 17May 26, 2014 7:08 am You got a discount for them not including carpet - we did something similar. I did not see this as a discount as it was a reduction for something we did not get. It was in the price - but there is an allowance for it. Can you tell me what you actually got the discount on - was it the overall price - ie 10% off - prior to sign; or inclusions ... eg free air/con etc. It would be helpful for others to know where the discounts might best be found - and thus when/where to argue. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 18May 26, 2014 7:25 am I'm not hell bent on anything. It was a general question. people are saying the SALES person gave discounts. You're in a HENLEY thread. You're aware of that aren't you? With HENLEY (once again, you're in a HENLEY thread...), you don't deal with sales person again after signing the first quote, which is prior to tender where you get pricing. Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 19May 26, 2014 9:30 am PEARZ I signed last august, got a $10k discount and both my estate and site costs also went down at tender. Only other cost they added was the provision for electricity which hopefully we'll get back at the end. Everything else was our own upgrades which were fairly priced... well except the sink lol!! We paid a holding deposit as the promotion was ending that weekend and did a sales quote for a different house plan and then we shopped around for the next 2 weeks before trying our luck with our sales consultant regarding discounts. Said i was in love with a different house plan but was slightly above our budget and can they do about it. Received an email 5days later saying he secured a 10K on the price! Wasn't expecting it so was very happy that we went in the next few days to finalise the prelims quote before signing off. As i mentioned at tender most of our prices actually went down as well so even more happy about it! Second Build, this time with Carlisle 2016, can't wait! Beckham: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67280 Canterbury: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=81175 Re: Any advice on negotiating with Henley? 20May 26, 2014 9:38 am PEARZ PEARZ I signed last august, got a $10k discount and both my estate and site costs also went down at tender. Only other cost they added was the provision for electricity which hopefully we'll get back at the end. Everything else was our own upgrades which were fairly priced... well except the sink lol!! We paid a holding deposit as the promotion was ending that weekend and did a sales quote for a different house plan and then we shopped around for the next 2 weeks before trying our luck with our sales consultant regarding discounts. Said i was in love with a different house plan but was slightly above our budget and can they do about it. Received an email 5days later saying he secured a 10K on the price! Wasn't expecting it so was very happy that we went in the next few days to finalise the prelims quote before signing off. As i mentioned at tender most of our prices actually went down as well so even more happy about it! That worked out well for you! I had a different experience. I asked for fixed site costs. It took 4+ months for them to give them to me and then when I got to tender they said they weren't honouring them and added +12k to the site costs. I went berserk and by the end of the appointment they honoured them. A question. Im in Queensland and building a new home. We managed to reach practical completion 6 weeks ago but we haven't heard any date for handover yet. Who should we… 0 5807 Hi, If you give a set of criteria as to what means 'good' to you, it'll give others prompts to respond. We considered Henley early on but there were two factors that… 1 10509 Versaloc is a mortarless besser block system that still needs a properly engineered footing. If you just do a 400x200 footing it will fail in time. At 17m long you need it… 1 17874 |