Short answer: the developer's flooring package is the easy option, not the cheap one, and most of the time you can have better flooring fitted before you move in for less. Here is how to think it through.
What the developer offers
Most builders in the Glasgow area sell flooring from an options list at the sales office: a handful of carpets, a couple of vinyls or laminates, sometimes an LVT at the top. The price is added to the purchase and, if you are taking the maximum mortgage, effectively borrowed over twenty-five years. It is fitted before you get the keys, and that is the whole appeal.
What it costs
Two things push the price up. The options list is priced for convenience, not competition, and you are choosing from what the builder's supplier stocks rather than the market. And then it is on the mortgage. A flooring package borrowed over the life of a mortgage costs a good deal more than its ticket price by the time it is paid off, for a carpet that will need replacing long before then.
The alternative
Buy the house without the flooring package, get a flooring company in between the keys and the removal van, and pay for it directly or on short-term 0% finance. Because you are buying from a showroom, you choose from hundreds of carpets and floors instead of ten, and the money you spend goes on the floor rather than the convenience.
The timing question
The worry people have is the gap: keys on Friday, flooring fitted when? We work to your completion date. Once you have a date from the solicitor we measure from the plans or on a site visit, order the flooring, and book the fitters for the days between completion and moving in. Whole-house jobs are usually one to two days. Furniture arriving the same week is fine; we fit round it.
What to check before you decline the package
Ask the sales office whether the house comes with any flooring at all if you decline. Most come with none, so the sub-floor is bare screed or chipboard, which is exactly what a fitter wants. Ask whether declining affects any incentive they have offered; sometimes a package is bundled with a deal that is worth more than the flooring. And check the completion date is realistic before you book anyone.
Developments we cover
We have fitted homes at Millerpark and Queens Quay in Clydebank, Carrick Meadows in Duntocher, The Hawthorns in Dumbarton, Dargavel Village in Bishopton, Ferry Grove in Renfrew, Millside in Milngavie and others across Glasgow, Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire. Each has its own page with the layouts and what works in them on our new-build flooring hub.
Get a comparison
Bring the developer's flooring quote to the showroom, or send it with a request for a free measure, and we will price the same rooms like for like. Then you can decide with both numbers in front of you.
Paul James Home, Co-op Department Store, Clydebank. Monday to Saturday 9 to 5. 0141 266 0400.