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How did we get here..


Beechgate

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Despite watching lots of Grand Designs, building a house wasn’t something I’d ever considered until about 18 months ago. Fast forward to today and we’ve bought a plot, instructed an architect, and I’ve traded my evening telly time for browsing the Buildhub forum. So how did we get here?

 

My partner and I want to start a family but agreed that we wanted to move into something larger first. We drew up a list of what we wanted and started our search. After months of searching / viewing we began to realise that we were going to be spending a huge amount of money just to buy something that was ‘kind of’ what we wanted. Still, what else could we do?

 

Then I stumbled across Danwood – the polish prefab house firm – and had my eyes opened to the world of self-building. I paused the depressing Rightmove search and started reading in earnest. We went to some self-build shows, read huge amounts online, and eventually decided to swap Rightmove for Plotfinder. Our hope was to build near where we live currently (to be near family / friends and have easy access to London for work) but had no luck finding anything suitable or affordable.

 

Funnily enough, it was Rightmove that came to the rescue. One night my partner sent me a link to a bungalow. It was small, in a sorry state, and well over our plot budget… But it sat on a good-sized plot and was in a great location for us. We called the estate agent to arrange a viewing and were politely told to eff-off as they’d accepted an offer from a developer. Back to square one.

 

2 weeks later I got a phone call from the estate agent asking if we were still interested in a viewing. The developer’s financing fell through in the wake of the Kamikwasi ‘mini’ budget and the bungalow was back on the market. We went for a viewing that evening, put in an offer, and a few months later the bungalow was ours!

 

We completed at the end of 2022 and have since appointed an architect but I’ll cover that, and other bits, in a separate post.

 

Thanks for reading - I look forward to sharing our inevitable ups and downs as we move along.

Edited by Beechgate
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Congrats!!

Most of the help, support and advice you'll need is either already written here, or can be discussed as and when. Please do not worry about adding to older threads, as it's good to blow the dust off things.

All the best of luck for the journey ahead. Ask first, then jump ;), but, so far, so good. :) 

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And as someone else on here pointed out ,  the best way to find it is not using the BH search but googling eg "buildhub foundations support" or the appropriate query.

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4 hours ago, saveasteading said:

And as someone else on here pointed out ,  the best way to find it is not using the BH search but googling eg "buildhub foundations support" or the appropriate query.

Start the search query with 

 

site:www.https://forum.buildhub.org.uk 

 

Much better than the built in search.

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11 hours ago, saveasteading said:

And you finished how?

No but getting there. We are doing most if it ourselves and part time around semi retirement. It's a project not a crusade. 

 

 

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On 12/03/2023 at 03:53, SteamyTea said:

site:www.https://forum.buildhub.org.uk

 

There's no www, and in any event you only need the domain (i.e., "site:buildhub.org.uk" without quotes) to use Google with a site limitation.

 

That said, @saveasteading is right: adding "buildhub" to the search term is all that's needed.

 

Quote

One night my partner sent me a link to a bungalow. It was small, in a sorry state, and well over our plot budget… But it sat on a good-sized plot and was in a great location for us. We called the estate agent to arrange a viewing and were politely told to eff-off as they’d accepted an offer from a developer. Back to square one.

 

2 weeks later I got a phone call from the estate agent asking if we were still interested in a viewing. The developer’s financing fell through in the wake of the Kamikwasi ‘mini’ budget and the bungalow was back on the market. We went for a viewing that evening, put in an offer, and a few months later the bungalow was ours!

 

Very similar to our situation. Found a hideous 90 m2 bungalow that hadn't been looked at since it was built in the 1950s. Started negotiating, and then a developer came in with the asking price and we lost it.

 

Several months later it appeared again - developer got cold feet due to the number of trees. We started negotiating again, and then a different developer came in at full price.

 

This time it was only a few weeks before it appeared for sale again with a different agent. We ended up paying the asking price, although by then there were the beginnings of the property market bottom being in (late 2012), so we weren't too concerned.

 

We'd planned to rent it out for up to a year while we sorted out plans etc. Unfortunately, we discovered too late that our mortgage company wouldn't allow even a brief rental under any circumstances. So we moved into this tiny 2-bed bungalow with two young kids. It was actually brilliant in a way. Both kids cried when we moved out.

 

It ended up taking us over 2 years to get planning and start the build. Worth it though. I'll be following your build with interest!

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