Baxter1980

Oh thank you so much ... I was beginning to think it wasn't going to be possible. I'll give them a call tomorrow then and see what they say Thanks x

Joe, do you mind advising me what Ecology would loan you? As it 3.5 or 4 x your salary? The reason I ask is because another provider who is quite experienced with self builds up in Scotland has told us the figure we want isn't possible. But I put it in to the 'how much can I borrow' part of the Ecology site and it says much more? The ecology site does have a few flaws though and I was guessing somewhat as the 'information' symbol next to the question such as 'money each month after outgoings' didn't work so I was unable to know exactly what figures they are after. Thanks

Aw that's really helpful. So it's not necessarily finding alternative materials (I was thinking grand designs lol) but more shopping around for a better price for the same product? We should be able to save a little on labour costs as my husband does know some trades and we will be able to live on the land enabling him to work on the build at times and we will obviously project manage it ourselves. I'm not planning on building a mansion but I don't want a poky little box either. Yours seems massive?!?! Another quick question... we will be buying the land outright and putting some of our savings in to the build itself but we will be requiring a mortgage. Will they just trust us to say we think we can build it for £X amount? I don't want to go too far down this path and get excited for my hopes to be dashed lol

Do you have any tips on materials to use to keep the costs down? We have found suitable plots in NE Scotland and my husband has many friends in the trades up there with family who have completed their own builds 4/5 years ago before the price rise in materials. We were hoping to buy the land and then use about 250K to build the house, but I'm reading more and more that makes this seem impossible.