To be seriously considering building my own house?

[ziggiestardust]

Am I completely out of my mind?

I'm not talking about restoration, I'm talking about properly buying a plot of land and building a house.

Do people really do this? I'm just starting to wonder how ill ever reasonably afford a decent house otherwise. It seems like you get a lot more for your money, and you get exactly what you want too.

Has anyone done this?

[ziggiestardust]

Because obviously, there's already a dwelling on that land; you're not taking away the green and pleasantness, if you see what I mean.

[mistlethrush]

It depends where it is - because if its still in the Green Belt or the countryside outside a settlement, you might find there are restrictions on how much more floor area you can achieve. However, it does start with a good basis. Its not that difficult to check on this - you need to look at the planning policy section of the relevant Council and find it on one of their policy maps to see if there's any designation which covers the plot you're interested in. If it is within a settlement, then check whether there are particular rules that relate to house building or extending in that area etc etc etc.

[Northernexile]

DH and I have done this- it is pretty common here (NI). We have a self-build mortgage, and we have saved money as DH, an engineer, bought land off family and project-managed the whole thing himself while working full-time.

It took about 3 years to get moved in, we had to spend the first nine months of married life living with MIL as we couldn't afford to continue to rent and pump money into the build, and then we went and had DD, meaning the outside is still a building site as we have no time to spare.

It has been manic, but hugely rewarding, and I now have a home I could only have dreamed of having growing up on a council estate in the north west!

[megjswg]

Hi,
I know I'm a bit late joining this thread, but I was doing some browsing of topics!

We have been looking into building our own home and have completely fallen in love with Border Oak homes - //www.borderoak.com

We have spoken and met with them and they are absolutely lovely, friendly, helpful and they seem to really know their trade.

The houses are just gorgeous and we've seen others built near us that sell for a lot! The prices they gave us seem really reasonable and has made me realise our dream could be a reality.

I would definitely take a look at their website (but be prepared to fall in love!).