Property Dilemma – What & Where?

DairyQueen

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The novelty wears off. If you wish to indulge yourselves. Try some short term rentals.

https://www.living-architecture.co.uk/default.asp

Wow, those are incredible properties. Interestingly, several are in our region and one is almost local.

Which has given me an idea :idea:

DairyQueen

Has anyone commissioned a house? i.e. Found a plot and had a house built?

i have never undertaken such a project but I'm beginning to think this may be worth considering.

Spreadsheetman

DairyQueen wrote: »

Has anyone commissioned a house? i.e. Found a plot and had a house built?

i have never undertaken such a project but I'm beginning to think this may be worth considering.

LOL, I am currently watching a friend try and build a house. He has only got as far as the purchase of the plot, getting a temporary home to live in, getting services connected to site (kafka-esque battles with faceless monolithic beaurocracies - still ongoing) and fighting the council in a massive planning battle (still ongoing).

I'm exhausted just observing it and no building has actually happened yet. I had vaguely thought it might be a cool thing to do, but I'd not attempt it now having seen the frustrations and stress of the process up close. I'll settle for buying a house thanks.

shinytop

Very good topic and very relevant to us. We are right in the middle of this decision having just sold (semi-rural 5 bedroom early 1900s house with a big garden) with nowhere to move to yet. We’ll rent until we decide (if anyone will have us but that’s another story). Both OH and I have living parents in late 80s/90s so I can see what the future holds should we last that long. But the line between active 60-something and semi-housebound 80/90-something is very blurred. Still in my 50s, I’m definitely not ready for a retirement bungalow yet and am with those that say don’t look too far ahead. I’d rather move in 10-15 years than compromise for the next 30. So we’ll pick a location and move, then move again locally if/when we need to. If we happen to find somewhere that will suit us now and in 25 years’ time then great.

One thing we won’t do is move to a rural idyll, miles away from family. I had a colleague whose parents did this – they moved to Devon where they had spent many family holidays - and when they got old it was an absolute pain for him having to spend a whole weekend to just to visit them and do the shopping/clean the house. I don’t think Camberwick Green exists any more anyway; Mrs Dingle has long since retired and the Post Office has moved to a Co-Op 5 miles away .

Slinky wrote: »

We decided to move in our 50s in order to make a new life and find new friends which we thought would be easier than leaving it until we are older.

Very good point and something I'm quite looking forward to.

OldMusicGuy

DairyQueen wrote: »

Has anyone commissioned a house? i.e. Found a plot and had a house built?

We seriously thought about it. However, the stresses involved put us off. Here's a really important thing to think about. You have limited time left on this earth, and the 60 to 75 age are the go-go years. Do you want to spend 2 to 4 years stressing about getting a house built when you could just be enjoying yourselves? Unless you have done this before or have some building knowledge and really good project management skills, I think it's a recipe for considerable stress.

Maybe you should do what we have ended up doing. Like Thrugelmir we have spent 2 to 3 years researching areas where we wanted to retire to and have been looking at potential properties for about 18 months. After getting put off by looking at big new build estates, my wife came up with the idea of finding a small local developer and seeing what they were doing. She found such a company that was just about to start a small development of three properties in one of our target villages. We got in early, put down a holding deposit and have been able to influence (to a degree) the layout of the house. We can't change the footprint or external appearance but have been able to change the bathroom configurations and room layout. Obviously we have complete control over things like kitchen design. It's almost like designing a house without nearly so much of the hassle (it's not completely hassle free).

So maybe you could consider going down that path. However, it took us three years of researching to get to that point. We had clear ideas of where we were looking and what we wanted.

You need to be in a village IMO. Our property is in a small cul-de-sac of three properties off a minor road with zero traffic. No noise at all, yet 5 minutes walk from the village centre.

Malthusian

DairyQueen wrote: »

Has anyone commissioned a house? i.e. Found a plot and had a house built?

i have never undertaken such a project but I'm beginning to think this may be worth considering.

I'm with the responses above. If you are contemplating a ~10 year period of active retirement (early 60s - early 70s) then building a house is basically going to consume half those years. Not for me Clive.

It would make more sense if you were in your 50s and winding down your work. Building a house is part of retirement planning (like working to pay pension contributions), not retirement.

For it to make sense you also need to have a very specific vision of what you want your dream home to look like and be prepared to put in the time to be an amateur architect and drive that vision into reality. There is zero point in going through the hassle of building a home from scratch to end up with a house that looks exactly like any other.

DT2001

Very interesting topic.

I’m almost 60 and semi retired. We started looking for land/barn conversion a few years ago as a final project (we’ve done 2 before but many years ago). Whilst spreadsheet is correct about the extra stress as long as you are realistic in terms of budget and time it is fulfilling. Our search area is small as our youngest is at a good secondary school and both mothers live locally. We have been outbid a few times however there are more opportunities since the relaxing of some planning guidelines. We have also adjusted our criteria to favour those plots nearer/in villages. We are hopeful that we can design somewhere that will allow 15/20 years of enjoyment before the necessity of a move.

My mother moved 200 miles to be closer to family at 85 into a retirement home (agree that average age is 75+ but most are v active). The trauma of the move was mitigated by abdicating almost all responsibility to her 3 children! She combined the move with releasing equity and so could buy in more help.

We are in Devon, a few miles from the coast and moors and the prices are about half of those London (we assume) holiday home enclaves like Kingsbridge, Salcombe and Newton Ferrers. So the opportunity is there to achieve the dream location (well nearby) and access to facilities.

There are 2 larger (25+ units) developments locally that are aiming to utilise self build plots to meet the criteria for affordable housing. The plot sizes are good as they are semi rural and the planning authority’s desire is not too overdevelop. I am watching the final planning negotiations as both have bus links and one has allotment space so a low maintenance garden combined initially with an allotment seems ideal.

You do not know what is around the corner so try the dream out and if it doesn’t work out move on.

Marine_life

DairyQueen wrote: »

Has anyone commissioned a house? i.e. Found a plot and had a house built?

Not quite (but similar).

We have bought a barn conversion which has enabled us to be involved in quite a few things (some minor changes to internal layout, choice of kitchen, bathroom, flooring etc.). There are six barns being converted which will be a ready-made community.

In terms of retirement living (we weren't thinking about that when we bought it), it gives us the character property we were after (lookswise) but with a very modern, low maintenance interior. The advantage with our conversion is also that there is far more living accommodation on the ground floor than there is "upstairs" (i.e. two bedrooms downstairs and two up). We're also getting a small garden (hate gardening and I am sure will hate it more as we get older).

Location wise, since we came back to the UK we've been living on the Somerset/Devon border and we'll be staying in the same area. From my perspective, its an ideal spot as:

1. We're only 15 mins drive from 3 major population centres but otherwise very rural.
2. Equidistant between north and south coast (each about 40 minutes away).
3. Fast links to London nearby.

There will always be compromises but I hope we've found the right balance.

Thrugelmir

DairyQueen wrote: »

Wow, those are incredible properties. Interestingly, several are in our region and one is almost local.

Which has given me an idea :idea:

A couple have been featured on Grand Designs and been shortlisted for house of the year.

Thrugelmir

DairyQueen wrote: »

I can't wait to move but there is a dearth of properties on the market in our region as Brexit and the Election have pretty much killed all activity.

Time of year. Will pick up again in the New Year.