If you are in the market for moving home, now could be the ideal time to find a new build bargain. In fact, property experts say it’s the best time to strike a deal for a decade.
Britain’s housebuilders have been struggling to offload homes for months, due to a combination of economic gloom, rumours about property taxes in the Budget and an oversupply of completed properties compared to buyers.
With a sluggish few months behind them and year-end sales targets still to meet, many developers are keener than ever to strike a deal. .
This puts buyers in an extremely strong bargaining position, with some agents claiming they can knock prices down by 12 or 13 per cent.
Rob Bence is the co-founder of Property Hub, an agency which finds new build buy-to-let properties for landlord clients. He strikes deals on these kinds of homes week-in, week-out, and says conditions are perfect at the moment.
‘We’re seeing conditions in the property market that we haven’t seen for over a decade,’ says Bence. ‘The annoying thing about property cycles is that you normally only recognise the good buying windows in retrospect.
‘But we’ve been doing this long enough to spot them while they’re happening – and this is one of those moments.’
Bargains galore: One property investor said that his business has recently been securing new build discounts of up to 17%
Bence says that, in 2022, he was securing an average discount on new-builds of 8 per cent, but now it is nearly 13 per cent – with his biggest discount as high as 17 per cent.
The estate agent Chestertons also says developers are struggling to sell newly built homes, as there are a higher than usual number of completed properties available for sale.
Watson Briggs, head of new homes sales says buyers can negotiate discounts of up to 12 per cent at the moment.
‘We have seen a 21 per cent decrease in new buyer enquiries for new homes this year, whilst developers carried on completing their projects,’ says Briggs.
‘This has resulted in a momentary imbalance of supply and demand for completed new build homes so there has really never been a better time to buy.
‘As developers need to meet their sales targets before the end of the year, buyers are in a particularly strong position to negotiate incentives and price reduction of up to 12 per cent.
They also have the advantage of being able to see these homes in person straight away, rather than looking at a computer-generated image and buying them off-plan.
Why are new builds being sold cheap?
The Government created uncertainty across the market with property tax rumours circulating ahead of the Budget on 26 November.
While many of the tax rumours ahead of the Budget came to nothing, higher rates of taxation were dished out on landlords and owners of expensive homes, in the form of an extra 2 per cent National Insurance surcharge on landlords and a council tax surcharge on £2million-plus properties which is being called a ‘mansion tax’.
Some new build homes are also suffering from having the leasehold tag. Most new build flats are leasehold, as well as some houses on managed estates.
Leasehold properties have picked up stigma in recent years due to the cladding scandal and uncertainty around leasehold reform.
Mansion tax: Rumours of new property taxes in the Budget hit buyer confidence, but in the end only landlords and owners of £2million-plus homes were affected
There are also concerns around high service charges that can potentially make homes difficult to sell or get a mortgage on.
Rob Bence of Property Hub says the negativity is resulting in the type of opportunities that would normally only be expected after a house price crash.
‘Sentiment has been poor for quite some time now, and as this has continued, developers have consistently missed their monthly sales targets and now have a gap to make up,’ says Bence.
‘We’re seeing the types of discounts you’d typically expect after a market crash – yet we haven’t had a crash, and nor are we expecting one.’
Here are seven steps to bag yourself a new-build bargain, and make sure it’s a genuinely good deal.
1. Look in the right place
In some parts of the country, new builds are being listed for tens of thousands of pounds below where they were this time last year, according to analysis by Propertymark, the membership body for estate agents.
It revealed that average prices for new builds in the South West have dropped by £33,120 when compared to October 2024.
In the current market, knowledge is your biggest bargaining chip
Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of Garrington Property Finders
In Yorkshire and Humberside there has been a £33,104 drop during the same period.
However, finding new build developments ripe for negotiation is easier said than done for those not…
Read More: Buyers can get the BIGGEST discounts on new homes for a decade: Seven steps to