Self-build - what could you achieve for £250k?

UKmitch

The wife and I have been in a new build for less than a year, and it's given us the foundation and confidence to focus on life and what we want to get out of the next 5-10 years.

Now we're not under the terms of a rental contract, we're able to rent out rooms to lodgers, operate businesses from home, keep a pet, paint/decorate, not worry about being thrown out after 6 months on a whim, tend a garden, the list goes on...

We're both fans of the programme Grand Designs, and when you're only paying materials and labour, not a builder's profit margin, I can see how we could build something more impressive than your average 3-bed semi on the same budget.

Has anyone on MSE built their own home? It doesn't have to be Grand Designs scale, but I'm trying to find out what the first steps are and whether it will remain a pipe dream, or with some research and effort, could be a reality. If you have, where did you start and did you feel you 'had to reach a certain point in life/work' to be happy to do it? Is it even a risk?

HouseBuyer77

I know little about self-build but does your £250k budget include the land costs? For £250k on build alone I suspect you can get something rather nice. The land to go along with it may cost 2 or 3 times that however.

UKmitch

The cost of land had crossed my mind, but I didn't ever feel it would be in the order of £250-750k. That would definitely make it unworkable. We live in the East Midlands and quite like it, plenty of empty land and greenery around.

A quick Google seems to return some pleasant numbers;
http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-properties-for-sale/east-midlands/derbyshire/
http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-properties-for-sale/east-midlands/leicestershire/

God knows if that land can be built upon, or how much it would cost to get utilities/roads in.

Our current house footprint is around 7m wide by 40m (if I'm being generous). That's 280m^2.

5 acres is 20,000m^2...

jackyann

Yes, I have (in the East Midlands) and the first rule of building on a budget is to ignore Grand Designs!

My main advice is not to rush. 2 invaluable things to do:

Buy Home Building & Renovating magazine, get tickets for their shows, go and spend a good day wandering about, going to the talks. You will get all of your questions answered and learn all about the questions you haven't even thought of!

Read The Housebuilder's Bible by Mark Brinkley. He keeps the editions up to date so costs are current, but even old copies give you a good idea.

Certainly do these before registering with Plot Search or any similar agencies. Take your time to think about how you would do things - then when the ideal plot comes up, you will be ready to go!

We treated the research as a hobby for 5 years before we got our plot.

As for the cost - so much depends on the labour you put in yourself - or get for free from friends & family. There are also some councils encouraging self builds. at the shows you learn about financing schemes as well.

Most self-builders are either retired, or people who are casually / self-employed so they can put more time in, but you do meet people who build from scratch whilst working (usually living in a caravan on site). If you are interested, start looking, even if it all goes on the back burner for some years.

POPPYOSCAR

Yes we had our house built 20 years ago.


We did not set out to but came across a derelict house on 6 acres by chance.


It was not an easy ride for us.


We had the builder and architect standing on the foundations at one point arguing with each other, and there were many more disputes with the builder along the way.


It also took a lot longer than we thought but that was not a problem as we stayed living in our house, so no old caravan in the winter as some do.


Think long and hard about the design and the finer points such as sockets etc.






All in all it was a very stressful time in our lives but we are glad we did it as we have a property that we could not have afforded any other way.

ReadingTim

Grand Designs tends to be more about 'building a Grand Design', rather than 'designing a Grand Design', and more often than not glosses over the cost of acquiring the land and associated planning permission on which to put your grand design - suggest you take a look at how easy and cheap this isn't, before you get hung up on cost and features of what you'd build on said land...

fairy_lights

I also watch Grand designs and I've picked up three important pointers about building your own house:
1. It will go massively over budget
2. You will spend several cold winters living in a caravan
3. Your wife is guaranteed to get pregnant before the work is complete.

MrJB

OP agricultural land is about 20k/acre. Residential development land (around me anyway - Suffolk/Essex borders) is about 700k/acre. You may get a consent on agricultural land, but if it looks as though it would be relatively simple then it will alter the value of the land

Professional Fees/ Utilities/ CIL contributions are all going to eat a large amount of your chunk up. You can buy self build plots, but these are unlikely to be huge plots and are unlikely to be cheap.

googler

UKmitch wrote: »

(URLs snipped) God knows if that land can be built upon, or how much it would cost to get utilities/roads in.

You can establish this from looking at the local plan on your council's website, and establishing their policies for farmland development, where such policies differ from national policy.

Round my way, building a house on land which is zoned for agricultural use is frowned upon unless the houses are required for operation of the farm concerned (accommodations for workers etc.)

Typically, you'll only get planning consent for a site which is earmarked for residential development in the local plan, or for redevelopment of a brownfield or infill site (redevelopment of existing property, or squeezing something into the end of someone's garden, where they subdivide their own plot and sell a chunk to you

A google for "self-build average cost per square foot" seems to bring interesting results...

lincroft1710

UKmitch wrote: »

A quick Google seems to return some pleasant numbers;
http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-properties-for-sale/east-midlands/derbyshire/
http://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-properties-for-sale/east-midlands/leicestershire/

God knows if that land can be built upon, or how much it would cost to get utilities/roads in.

The chances of getting pp for a single house on agricultural land unless it is connected with agriculture are virtually nil, unless perhaps it adjoins existing housing. The best you will get would be an infill and you would be competing with builders and experienced developers trying to get a 4/5 bed or 2 houses on the site.

£250K will not get you very far these days for a self build, if you have to buy the land.

duggan1

fairy_lights wrote: »

3. Your wife is guaranteed to get pregnant before the work is complete.

How else do you stay warm in the cold caravan winters?