Self Build / Barn Conversion question?

[Earthworm Jim]

Hi All

In about 4 - 5 years I am planning on selling my place with the goal of doing a self build / Barn conversion. I am hoping it will be in the Kent area as well. Question is, I want to start working out costs and seeing if this dream can oneday become a reality within the next 5 years or so. I would want it to be a 3 bedroom place with a basement (cinema ) and will be extremely hightech with automation everywhere.

That is the dream so far. My current digs is mortgaged at £156k I reckon I can sell it (after having done it up) for about £175k in about 4 - 5 years. Which coupled with the savings I can get together in about 5 years should give me about a 50k deposit. Question is, who is best to speak to about this? Are there paticular companies I need to talk to? Do I need a budget first for how much I can spend on the build? What about council planning? How best to go about getting land? Basically I am looking for any advice about how to go about doing this from people who have done this kind of thing before.

Thanks in advance

[Dony]

Not knowing the planning rules for the area it's hard to advise, but first thing I would be doing is looking for a suitable site, preferably with outline planning permission.
You can do all the budget work in the background, but getting a plot should be your priority.

When we decided to build, it took us about a year to find a site that suited us (flat site in the country within 10 miles of a city, close to schools and local amenities etc.). We eventually bought a 1/2 acre plot with outline planning permission already granted.

We then hired an architect to do the drawings and submit them on our behalf. Provided we kept within the guidelines of the planners, once our final plans were submitted they were passed first time.

At this stage, the architect then put his plans out to tender, and from there we picked a contractor who would take on the complete build.

28 weeks after the first sod was dug up, we moved in.


Edit: regarding how best to buy the land, we went around all the estate agents to see what plots they had available, and went on site visits. In the end, my wife seen a private ad in a local paper, and we dealt direct with the farmer who was selling the land.

[Earthworm Jim]

Thanks, I think the hardest part for me would be the getting the mortgage, I closed off a credit card the otherday and payed off a small loan and my credit rating dropped into the "Needs Improvement" catagory, so could take a good while to sort that out again.

Its only a 5 year plan now but I'd like to check if its doable looking at it it seemd it is, I want something ultra modern and have been looking at those german flat pack houses but heard they are quite expensive so might give those a miss.

Did you get a mortgage first and then go to an architect and get it designed and priced or do you design it and get an overall cost first?

[Dony]

The equity we made on our first house was enough to cover the cost of land, and other things like architects and solicitors fees.
We then had to work out how much of a mortgage we could afford and got that sorted with the bank. The contractor we employed wanted 3 stage payments. The first I think was after the foundations and sub-floor went in, the second when the roof went on, and the third on completion.

There is a company who specialise in self build mortgages, but I can't remember their name. I'll have a look. The links below will give you more information.

Link

Link

You'll have Kevin McCloud around drooling over your Huf Haus in no time!

[Earthworm Jim]

Originally Posted by Dony

The equity we made on our first house was enough to cover the cost of land, and other things like architects and solicitors fees.
We then had to work out how much of a mortgage we could afford and got that sorted with the bank. The contractor we employed wanted 3 stage payments. The first I think was after the foundations and sub-floor went in, the second when the roof went on, and the third on completion.

There is a company who specialise in self build mortgages, but I can't remember their name. I'll have a look. The links below will give you more information.

Link

Link

You'll have Kevin McCloud around drooling over your Huf Haus in no time!

Thanks looking at those Huf Haus they are really expensive coming in at about £360k - £400k so might give them a miss but I do really like them, if I did do the whole self build thing it would be glass walls all round baby

[acid007]

I'd agree with Dony, the first thing you need to do is find some land to build upon. Ideally this needs to have planning permission (this will probably cost more) or it needs to be a brown field site.

Have a look at property auctions in your area, leave your details at estate agents to contact you when an appropriate site comes.

The rest would be all conjecture at the moment, so i would say focus on the above.

Trying to pin down costs etc for a project which is not planned for 5years or so would be spurious at best imho.

[Dony]

As well as agents, speak directly with land owners or farmers in the area.

When I built 5 yrs ago planning restrictions weren't as severe as they are now, and many farmers cashed in on their land. They realised that it would take a lot to farm an acre to recoup the £100k or so they would get for selling it as a site.

[Decadence]

5 years ago my Parents got planning permission for some of the land at their place and built two, three-bedroomed, detached houses on the plot for £80,000 each. If you can get the land for the right price you should be able to build something for around your budget but it will be very tight! Best of luck!

[Earthworm Jim]

On doing a bit more research, I am hoping to have about 300k to spend on a self build in about 5 years time, so I guess we'll have to see how it goes. So far it looks pretty do able, 250k can apparently build a nice 3 bedroom place, which should be about 100k - 120k for the land and then about 100 - 150k for the build itself.

Looking around on the land register site and a few others it seems like quite a do able thing for that amount of money.

[acid007]

Originally Posted by Earthworm Jim

On doing a bit more research, I am hoping to have about 300k to spend on a self build in about 5 years time, so I guess we'll have to see how it goes. So far it looks pretty do able, 250k can apparently build a nice 3 bedroom place, which should be about 100k - 120k for the land and then about 100 - 150k for the build itself.

Looking around on the land register site and a few others it seems like quite a do able thing for that amount of money.

The property value is normally proportionately 1/3 land value and 2/3 build value. Buy wisely you should have more money left for the actual build.

[eric pisch]

depends where you want it in Kent, there's alot of green belt and restricted land, and in commuter belt range it gets very expensive

where I live a plot with planning for a small 3 bed detached and garage would cost you 150-200k for the land, in chatam 20k

getting a mortgage at the moment I would imagine to be very hard and expensive for this type of project since the only asset is the land, budget 20% for the unexpected.

houses have to come up to building regs, one of the regs covers thermal efficiency, glass walls have crap thermal efficiency so you normally have to over compensate on the floors, roofs, other walls (smaller windows) etc

watch the construction type, mortgage lenders in the uk dont like timber frame buildings so it can make selling them harder, traditional brick and pitched roofs houses are fast to build. The construction firm I worked for had a property arm and we used to build housed in 8 weeks from digging footings to final fix.

there are two big areas which are a money sink for house building, the external materials and the internal fittings, there's no point spending £1500 a thousand for hand made bricks when you can get a mass produced equivalent for a fraction of the cost when 99% of people cant tell the difference. Its also easy to blow fortunes going mad on kitchen, bathroom and wood finishings.

don't over customise it, there's not point spending 400k on a place that's your dream house only to make it unsellable.