# negotiating on a new townhouse construction



## clovis8 (Dec 7, 2010)

Anyone have experience negotiating on a new condo/townhouse construction? I am not sure what my boundaries are. Based on my research it seems developers do not like to reduce the price but there is sometimes room for free upgrades. 

Some background is that nobody lives in the complex yet but about 20/120 units are sold. My unit will be $235,000. I am thinking of doing about 5k worth of upgrades. 

Would it be unrealistic to ask for a few free upgrades? For example, stainless appliances cost $1200. I am thinking of asking for that for free. There are also charges for $350 to put TV and surround sound wiring in the walls. 

That would be a $1500 ask. Reasonable? Unlikely?


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## JA2285 (Jan 25, 2011)

I think $1500 is selling your self short to be honest.. How long has the development been on sale for? What are the market conditions like in your home town? How has it been selling or how far along is the actual build?

I think market factors will really determine how much you can get out of them. The winter slow down, doom and gloom in the markets, carrying costs etc.

Also are you using a realtor? Ask them what their compensation is for a buyer and or selling agent involved... I know ours was sold by a realtor in which $15,000 was split between the buyer and seller.

If there is a buyer commission and you do not use a realtor there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get that or a portion of it credited to you.

See if you can get a vibe from the sales people is what i do... "how are these selling?" does the show suite seem busy.. does the sales person seem a bit desperate?

We have a development close by, 16 single family homes, most of the complete of the 28 total. 3 or less had been sold. The developer is on the small side and carrying costs are huge.. The Realtor reeked of desperaation.. Write an offer.. I think we can get X Y Z thrown in..


Bottom line -- You can never go back down in price after you write an offer. Start low. A friend of mine's professor in a negotiating course said something along the lines of... Take whatever offer you were going to give, if you're not embarrassed by the number, your probably starting too high. At $1500 off, as a developer I would either stay strong to my number, because at $1500 its doubtful they would walk over it. Or they would do the "lets split it in the middle, whose going to walk away over $750"... take no prisoner, the developer is just looking at the bottom line


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## sprocket1200 (Aug 21, 2009)

as a purchaser do not buy anything that has not already been built. people just don't learn their lessons.

as an investor, please buy before built. easy way for us to make money...


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## joncnca (Jul 12, 2009)

i tried to negotiate with sales but was totally unsuccessful at getting anything out of them. i didn't have any hopes going in, builder was great gulf, people were literally lining up at the door, getting numbers in the queue, and waiting for the opportunity to buy in the development. flat out told me they don't cooperate with realtors and the price was the price, take it or leave it.

i'd already decided on the place, it's what my wife wanted, and it suited my life, so i wasn't about to walk away. but i try to negotiate everything, even if it's a losing battle. once i hammered at a guy for 10 minutes over $5 for a novelty bracelet for my wife (then girlfriend) and got what i wanted, and then walked away at another store over $2 because the salesperson there was being too arrogant for my liking, haha. i think you get over the feeling of embarrassment eventually. i'd love to become a great negotiator, and i figure practice is always good. doesn't hurt anyone to ask, except your own pride, but you can buy yourself some new pride with the savings from good negotiating =)

"take whatever offer you were going to give, if you're not embarrassed by the number, your probably starting too high" 

awesome.

just try, hopefully you'll get something!


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

If you're not willing to walk away, you lost every negotiating position that means anything. A good salesperson will smell it on you and if as you said there are people lined up outside...forget it.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

clovis8 said:


> Would it be unrealistic to ask for a few free upgrades? For example, stainless appliances cost $1200. I am thinking of asking for that for free. There are also charges for $350 to put TV and surround sound wiring in the walls.


Stainless steel is just marketing. Even in a store though each appliance is only ~$100 extra in SS so $1200 is obviously nego

$350 is also a cash grab seeing as those cables cost mere $10 in bulk and wiring is dirt easy before the walls are finished. I would even offer to buy the cables myself (they're dirt cheap online)

I would try to negotiate all the upgrades this way, but they are set at high prices because some other fool will pay them


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I have never bought a condo but we have bought many new homes , my best advise for you is to ask for all the upgrade you can think of into the deal then haggle on the price.We bought a house and included extra outlets , sound proof rooms ,upgraded cabinets , surround sound ,floorings etc.We got all these things in our price and the next door neighbor got very similar things but paid$6000 more than us as he agreed on price then added upgrades which they did not discount.We wrote our deal to include all upgrades then the price went on the paper.


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## GeniusBoy27 (Jun 11, 2010)

Everything is always negotiable. It's your money, and as long as you can seem non-desperate and keep to your guns, you'll be fine.

Everything time we go in a negotiation -- my wife plays the bad cop and I play the good cop. However, we have a range of acceptable prices that we're willing to go. We take a look at every comparable, and look at the minimums the other side will accept, and the maximum we're willing to play, and work on a sliding scale to move it as close to the minimums. Then, you detect the desperation on the other side and push as hard as you can.

On new places, with developers, I have gotten them to renegotiate price -- as reluctant as they are. It affects the seller's commission, but if they want anything, you have to be willing to stay firm and walk away. Give them your phone number, and said call me if we can negotiate a better price with options. However, as Berubeland said above, the ability to walk away is important.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I've been to their glitzy presentations with model of new development. The women all look awesome and are young and friendly. But make no mistake about it: they've setup those temporary offices to SELL. There are always lineups and crowds of people at these things, by design I am sure. I do not believe they are willing to negotiate terms at that point since they're basically there to collect huge deposits and get locked in to an installment plan of sorts to make followup payments in the manner they outline. I don't see this as being the environment for negotiations.

That said, I would love to hear from anyone (via a post in this thread) who has managed to get a lower price in these circumstances.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

I forgot about this but I was reading a post somewhere that the developer was hiring people to stand in the line to make it seem like there was a lot of demand

They hired the people on Craigslist.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Also, artificial scarcity is created by the builders to keep increasing prices phase by phase.


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## rookie (Mar 19, 2010)

any upgrade the builder is offering is 90% cash grab (meaning its costs the builder only 10% the quoted value). but unfortunately, most of the items would cost you the same quoted value to do it yourself later on. this is the reason why they do it. while only the framework is up, does it cost him extra 350 to put up some extra electrical/electronic outlets??? come on, give me a break. the only logical explanation i got for the enormous charges are that once you ask for these changes, they have to open up a file and the contractors have to go back once more after the base work is done and then do the requested changes and this is why they have such a big charge.

for example, when we bought our house, we got a fireplace included in the price. we did not like the location of the fireplace. so we asked him if we could move it to a corner. cost to do that was 2k. we asked him to give any other upgrade instead of a fireplace but it was shooted down.


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