How much does it REALLY cost to build a house

[SleepForTheWeak]

My husband and I are considering moving, and one of the options we have thought on is building our own house. We are completely uneducated on the costs and work that would be involved apart form the land and frame cost - so what I would like to know is how much is would really cost us in the end.

So, we can buy a plot of land for £48000 (1000ft2) and a frame for a 4 bed bungalow for 40-50000 (exc vat). What would the cost of labour, foundations and fitting the house with kitchen etc be approx?

We could buy a 4 bed bungalow in our area for £150-190,000 so wondering if building our own would be cheaper or more expensive.

Any advice welcome!!

Unless you have lots of expertise, I'm not convinced that building your own is necessarily cheaper than buying a ready-built house. Most people self-build because they want a specific type of house or because they have got their hands on a plot for free (land belonging to a relative etc) or they can juggle it so that the plot can be subdivided and the sale of the other house/s will pay for their own. I've seen a lot of self-built houses where people have put in a lot of work themselves and saved money but I have also seen a lot where the owners didn't and were merely "saved" by a rising market - but that would have happened if they bought conventionally.

It is possible to build a four-bedroom house for £100k (there's a whole TV series dedicated to it) which is what you would have to do to make it cheaper than buying second-hand but it usually means lots of compromises and not great finishes. Try visiting some of the self-build shows - Homebuilding & Renovating run several a year plus their magazine has lots of useful case studies that will give you an idea of costs - to get a feel for budgets.

Agree with Lala we were only building an extension but subscribed to Homebuilding and Renovation for a while and attended one of their shows where we could see things in reality and talk to people about their products.

There are non-traditional build methods such as SIPs which we would have done if building bigger than we did.

Foundations are an unknown because no builder knows what lies beneath the top surface.

You will need mains electricity, water and maybe gas laid to the site if there is nothing there already. Many people buy at auction a dilapidated bungalow as they sit on bigger plots of land and then demolish and re-build something completely different because it already has some foundations that you may re-use but will also have utilities already supplied.

There are lots of magazines and shows on Sky that show this sort of thing. It also comes down to what type of people you are. I am very decisive and can make decisions fast which is why I was on site every day for when the builder asked me what do I want to do about X.