Buying a plot and building a house

Iamdave

Where do you start when it comes to this?


After a couple of years window shopping there doesn't seem to be anything on the market in my area which has the x factor to justify selling my place and moving on.

My house has a value of £200k but even looking in unrealistic price brackets as high as £400k there doesn't seem to be anywhere that justify the move.


So i have started to consider the possibility of buying a plot and building in the next year or 2. But where do you start to look to see if it is financially viable?

It would be a 4/5 bed detached with double garage with room above. Do you just contact local builders and ask for a rough estimate or what?


Thanks

Hoploz

Around here a plot is the difficult part. I would have to spend half a million to get a knackered old shack of a bungalow to demolish, so that's your starting point - land price and availability.

nubbins

Try ebuild.co.uk, they even have a thread on there where people post building plots they have seen for sale around the UK.

Buildstore.co.uk is another good website to give yopu a rough idea on costs and process

You need plenty of cash available and it can take years to find a good plot.

Iamdave

So far the best plot I can find in a local village is 46m x 26m on the market at £125k. That would leave me with around £150k to build.

I'd have no idea if that would be sufficient though.....

eddddy

Presumably you'll need to sell your current house to fund the venture. Will you have enough spare cash to pay rent during the build, or will you be living in a caravan on a building site?

Will you need a mortgage, maybe start talking to lenders about self-build mortgages.

If you have no relevant skills to offer - so you just pay architects, engineers, builders etc to do everything - you might find that you don't end up with anything bigger or better than you could have bought in the first place.

You could start by phoning a few architects to get their opinions.

brodawel

We've also been looking at this option due to lack of decent properties on the market. There are a few plots with OPP ranging from £80K to £200K (local views affect prices a lot around here) We went to the council to view the plans but every plot had restricted dwelling size because of factors such as overhead cables, underground pipework...the figures just didn't seem appealing to us for the size of house you could build. And as others have said, where would you live whilst doing it.

gwynhughes

Firstly find your land you want to build on, it doesn't have to have full planning on it with plans to view! If it has outline planning, it means you have to talk to your local planning officer about your plans.


Rough estimate from me as I am just finishing off my new build
Land £92,000 - not very big but had water/electric/sewerage connections on site
Cost to build, where we only have to build a retaining wall/landscape the garden and complete the oak/tile floors downstairs, and install solar panels - £85,000 on a detached 5 bedroomed (internal garage) house.

lincroft1710

Iamdave wrote: »

So far the best plot I can find in a local village is 46m x 26m on the market at £125k. That would leave me with around £150k to build.

I'd have no idea if that would be sufficient though.....

Good wide plot, I'm surprised no-one's tried to put 2 houses on there. In my home town they would be trying for 2 or 3 on that plot width.

POPPYOSCAR

gwynhughes wrote: »

Firstly find your land you want to build on, it doesn't have to have full planning on it with plans to view! If it has outline planning, it means you have to talk to your local planning officer about your plans.


Rough estimate from me as I am just finishing off my new build
Land £92,000 - not very big but had water/electric/sewerage connections on site
Cost to build, where we only have to build a retaining wall/landscape the garden and complete the oak/tile floors downstairs, and install solar panels - £85,000 on a detached 5 bedroomed (internal garage) house.

Wow that is cheap.


Would cost about £150,000 to build a 4 bed semi around here.

SurferDan

There is a company called Fairgrove Custom Build based in Derbyshire. We are about 2 months into a build programme with them.
They have a number of sites on which you can have a house built to a design chosen from their portfolio.
You get a choice of level of finish (you can take over at watertight and finish it yourself) or they complete it to your chosen spec.
You can change the layout internally to suit your needs and even change the design of house on the plot.
You buy the land from them and then they build the house for you.
I don't know if they have any sites in your area but it might be worth a look.

jackyann

I suggest buying a copy of Home Building & Renovating magazine, and going to one of their shows.