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Thinking about moving to a bigger house, nothing floats our boat as such. I would love to build our "forever home"
Obviously design costs, materials, labour, utilities, land etc have to be taken into account. Would it be cheaper in the bigger picture than buying a similar sized house already built?
talk to me about your experiences
Yep.
Don't under estimate how much work it is though.
I ve been watching a few renovations and there seems to be a point where its better to just knock the old one down and build from new. The current one i see just left the footings and side walls, i suspect for planning purposes. New one off builds are v expensive if you like quality finishes, which is what id be doing or i d buy a resale. I suspect its the finishing details that can escalate the cost.
we considered it. We have bought land and are paying someone else to build it for us.
We could have saved money, but it would have meant giving up so much time, we figured it wasn't worth it. I'd rather do other things basically.
it has been a significant investment of time just applying, getting water sorted, electricity supplied, paperwork, let alone designing the house and so on. plus there will be many years of gardening, landscaping, building the garage etc etc.
in summary , we couldn't be arsed to go the whole hog. You may have a different arse. 🙂
I half did - raised the roof and added an upstairs to a single story cottage.
It served it's purpose, but in hindsight, it would have made more sense financially to move to a bigger house.
A friend did a real grand design job in Cheshire. Everything that could go wrong did; from planning though to contractual breakdowns with architect and PM. It is a lovely house though, and you might have seen it on TV.
The finished house is truly stunning though and worth significantly more than it cost to build.
Build it out of anything (even driftwood and hay) other than ****ing bricks. Or keep the brick amount to a minimum. Trust me on this!
Not built from scratch but we did buy a semi-derelict building and did it up. Wasn't too bad, but probably spent as much on it as it's increase in value over the time we had it.
Now into our 5th year of our latest house - more simple cosmetic work done (1980s house that had been left exactly as it was when first built). But still included some major replumbing, walls (including structural) taken out, all new bathrooms/kitchen and completely redecorated (just the utility to go) - as well as lots of external work.
Even that is still a huge amount of work – I always wanted to do a proper 'start from nothing' build but after two smaller projects I am beginning to think I don't want to.
Yes, we built our house in London. Both gave up work to do it full time and Katie and I did nearly all the work ourselves. Massively stressful at times but very satisfying and you do, potentially, get exactly what you want (though of course there are a load of things that I would do differently if i was doing it again - you can always make things better).
>>>Would it be cheaper in the bigger picture than buying a similar sized house already built?
I'd go with probably not. We bought a plot with planning permission. Land like that is valued at the price of the house when it's built less the cost of building it with a 'profit' allowance for the developer. If you're doing a very safe, standard, simple build maybe you can bring it in for that price but building your 'forever home' you probably want to do something more interesting and will up the spec significantly from how a developer would knock it up to make the most money. Architects are (usually) terrible at estimating build costs on one off residential builds (look at any episode of GD oir any other house build/renovation project).
We basically came in on budget having spent the 'profit' and not charged for our own time (with two of us working on it full time for near enough 2 years). It's worth a lot more than that now but most of that will just be down to house prices increasing by a lot between us buying the plot and finishing the build.
If you can buy a plot that doesn't have planning and get it, or buy somewhere that does and change the planning into something more interesting/valuable then yes you can potentially save/make a lot but that's also got a lot of risk involved. Build something flash/high spec in a cheap area and you could easily end up spending more than you could sell it for.
I did, and I really enjoyed the process. I took almost two years off work to do it.
It cetainly saved money, but that was me coming from a crap job. A doctor taking two years out might not make quite so much sense...
I got lucky really. We built in 2009 with the downturn in full swing. Getting trades was easy, and everything went smoothly.
I'd love to do it again, but we're really settled here with great neighbours and plenty of shops, school close by.
We're in the process. Of getting someone else to build it that is. Under a traditional building contract.
Its obviously more expensive than either doing a lot of the work ourselves or even just managing a lot of subcontracts ourselves. But I'd need to take at least a year off work to do that plus learn as I go. And take considerable additional risks with that. However, in the end our choice of how to do it was driven more by people then contracting structure. Ask me late summer whether we made good choices!
We got the planning permission but I think had we bought the plot for what it was then worth we wouldn't find there was profit in the end value over plot and build costs. So if there's profit in ours I reckon it'll all be in the planning.
Edit: damn this new forum is annoying even when you're not quoting or adding photos! How do you get the text box to show in its entirety on the screen (android)? Why is zoom disabled?
answered in the other thread
Yes built my own house
Yes built a house for life for around 20-30% less than it would have buying a pre-existing house.
Yes, it’s probably one of the most satisfying things Ive ever done.
BUT
I worked on site 3-6 days a week
I did all specification, ordering and project management as well. It takes good planning and vision. We lost less than half a day over the course of 11 months build to delayed delivery of materials.
Although we have no need of another house, Id love to build one more but it would probably be a prefab german house that I designed and done groundworks for next time.
In my experience cheaper to build it yourself. It all depends on land costs.
And keep the building simple. 'Cheap' materials if used and detailed correctly will look and perform just as well as their expensive counterparts.
How do you live for two years with no salary building your own house? Do you live in a caravan on site with a chemical site toilet or have a healthy tsb savings account ? I'm not being cheeky just curious
I think back to it and I'm not sure myself how we lived in such relative comfort despite me not earning for two years!
But,
we made a few bob on the the sale of our previous house, not much compared to many though. I think there was about 20K or so though. No other savings or rich relatives.
Enough to buy a caravan for 2K, build a big shed for about 5K and do much of the groundworks and drains.
Eight years ago, a band six nurse working full time, with a few extra shifts could earn over 36K. That's decent money.
Work really hard, live frugally. Kids were very young so no holidays abroad.
Get lucky with bangernomics - I was still running a Vauxhall Cavalier diesel, the Isuzu one. Cost me 1K and I ran that car for five years with very little spent on it.
A friend did a real grand design job in Cheshire. Everything that could go wrong did; from planning though to contractual breakdowns with architect and PM. It is a lovely house though, and you might have seen it on TV.
Water tower in Congleton by any chance??
I'd love to do this and if the winning numbers come up, this is exactly what I will do.
As a career QS nothing would persuade me to build my own place with my own money
A vanity project that will go wrong for so many reasons
House are built a certain way for certain reasons, going against a bog standard design implies massive costs for nothing but vanity
however - good luck if you choose to do it
As a career QS nothing would persuade me to build my own place with my own money
I was just about to say exactly the same thing.
The country is full of fabulous old houses which just require a bit of therapy to make them awesome. Refurb all the way for me.
some friends have just had a extension redesign to their house which has added ~50% floorspace.
Cheaper than building and/or moving; although they did rent elsewhere for 6 months.
It's completely changed the feel of their house too.
Not new-build but bought an uninhabitable wreck, remodelled it and added another 40% or so area to make a 'forever house'. Lived on-site in a caravan bought for about £2k and then sold it at the end for £1.8k.
Was it cheaper than buying the same size place? Maybe. But it was the last recession and house prices were falling off a cliff then. We then had to sell at the bottom of the market as we needed to relocate. Covered our costs but not much more really. If another good project opportunity turns up we'd do it again and build 'forever house' mk2.
We built our own home back in 2010-11. Designed the layout myself, then passed to architect to do the plans etc and handle the planning application. I then took a sabbatical from work to project manage the build, all the way from levelling the old property through to finishing touches and snagging. While it is stressful, you will hit many challenges along the way, it is also very rewarding and you will learn a lot. You get the home you want, design, layout, finish, the lot. We saved about 35% on what developer/builders wanted to charge for a turn-key project. You will always be able to look at it and say 'I made that' and smile!
I'd love to do it again one day and apply everything I learned, but my wife would really like an old 'characterful' property when we are ready to downsize. :0(
Not a build from scratch but significant remodelling and adding around 50% extra space to house.
I managed to work with a builder who moved us around the house as we went. So at one point we were using an upstairs bedroom as a lounge whilst there was no back on the house. Luckily the change of layout completely moved the kitchen so we had the luxury of never having to be without one whilst the job completed. I know people who have had major works who have had a microwave xmas dinner.
We went massively over our original budget and that was driven by 2 main areas. 1) underfloor heating 2) specification of materials for the finish (very easy to get carried away here)
According to local estate agents we have added 60% of the amount spent on the renovation to the total market value of the property. So the outcome is a house I would never have been able to afford on the open market.
Really enjoyed the experience and when we downsize after the kids have left I'll be looking for a similar project, so 3 over a lifetime 😀
How do you live for two years with no salary building your own house? Do you live in a caravan on site with a chemical site toilet or have a healthy tsb savings account ? I’m not being cheeky just curious
Cost of renting a small flat within walking distance, and our living expenses, were part of the build budget. Move in as soon as you have any habitable space. You can live really cheaply when you need to. Uncle/Aunt lived in a static on site but we didn't have any site we weren't building on.
I’d love to do it again one day and apply everything I learned, but my wife would really like an old ‘characterful’ property when we are ready to downsize. :0(
Likewise, would love to do it again if/when we move but neither of us have any desire to live in an old house again. Warm, draught free, a layout that's not compromised around old spaces.
Keep em coming
We bought our bungalow on a sizable plot in 99 and finally knocked it down in 2005 whilst living in a mobile home in the front garden.
We built a lovely 5 bed house, having pretty much designed it myself with the help of a friend with Architectural experience and project managed the whole process whilst working full time. We moved out at the end of May and moved in on Christmas eve, with a few details to complete. It helped that my business is in Commercial Interiors, so I am used to managing various trades.
It was great to do, but I've not been in a hurry to do it again as it takes a huge amount of effort both physically and emotionally.
If you don't have the knowledge and experience then things could go badly wrong. Its worth finding someone you can pay to at least guide you through the whole process, even if its based on one visit a week.
As a career QS nothing would persuade me to build my own place with my own money
A vanity project that will go wrong for so many reasons
As a career Development analyst Id have to disagree!
I found it to be v rewarding. We were on budget (in fact sufficiently far under budget that I was permitted by Mrs to install a biomass heating system) and beat PC target by 1month. You have to be rigorous, reasonable in your specifications (all our kitchen and bathroom fitted furniture is Ikea e.g.)
And you cant go wrong with a good spreadsheet 😀
Yes, bought a bit of land tucked between a house and old people’s home.
Been a hard slog as I’ve done most of it myself, Moved in a year after starting, was a bit of a headache but it’s nearly finished.
Hardest part is picking everything in one go. I’ve still got light fittings missing as the lady of the house can’t make her mind up!