Flexibility on deposit?

We are very interested in trading up to a house in a new development. Needless to say, there's only one left of the house type we are interested in (so the agent is all rush rush rush but I'm trying to ignore that). House price is €490k and he's looking for €5k booking deposit and then 10% within 5 weeks. I'm wondering if others have come across flexibility with the deposit on new developments? Completion date for this house will be Aug06. I was thinking of asking him to take €20k in total as deposit.

I don't see why flexibility should be a problem. BTW, the final deposit is usually 10% less booking deposit (49k - 5k)

The way house prices are nowadays, most pepole would struggle to get 10% up front. Ask your solicitor to negotiate for the lower deposit (ie 20k or so). This deposit is really just a 'goodwill' figure, showing you are committed to the purchase, as this is what you lose if you pull out after contract signing.

I think its better for the vendor to take a lower deposit and guarentee contract signing rather than lose the sale just because the upfront deposit is too high ?

Interesting that you suggest that my solicitor request that developer accept a lower deposit. Would you recommend that I don't do this myself...was going to speak to EA and see what the reaction was?

Also, as completion date is so far into next year, I was going to hold off putting our current house on the market until early summer. Any issues with doing this?

IMHO, it's just not a good idea to sign contracts for a purchase when you haven't signed contracts for the sale of your own house. I have seen so many similar incidents where things go badly wrong culminating in losing the deposit you have put down.

Yep, I reckon you should ask your Sol to negotiate a lower contract deposit. Once you are signing contracts to purchase and are paying a partial deposit (ie the 20k), then the developers should be happy with this, although this isn't always the case. Good Luck!

FTB said:

IMHO, it's just not a good idea to sign contracts for a purchase when you haven't signed contracts for the sale of your own house. I have seen so many similar incidents where things go badly wrong culminating in losing the deposit you have put down.

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Agree that this is a risk we'd have to take but the alternative is to sell and rent for a number of months...as I'd hardly get someone to buy my house now with a closing date of Aug06. We could pay both mortgages if we had to, but needless to say don't want to get into that situation.