nod Posted October 11, 2019 Share Posted October 11, 2019 (edited) Now with a bit of spare times We are catching up on a bit of tv We have watch two episodes of building the dream and GDs Both make great viewing Both woefully under estimated there. budget The first was a massive lighthouse build 8 years on 3 mil spent Marriage split The second He did most of the Blockwork himself Expected a year Took three Budgeted 130k 300k plus To finish Made good viewing It’s so important for newbies to self build to be realistic when budgeting and accept that some things may cost more than expected Edited October 11, 2019 by nod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted October 11, 2019 Share Posted October 11, 2019 8 minutes ago, nod said: there 'Their' maybe. Agree that realistic budgeting helps. Someone here, at millstone manor - not me, thinks that Architects should take a course in costing their ideas as part of their charter, the course can be simple as 'think of a number and double it twice', an old friend, who when he retired had spent over £300m on buildings in his career, tells me architects don't do money. You have a guide though - just work on £3K per m2 and the chances are that 80% of the time you will come in under budget! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSS Posted October 11, 2019 Share Posted October 11, 2019 12 minutes ago, nod said: It’s so important for newbies to self build to be realistic when budgeting and accept that some things may cost more than expected Totally agree. I reckon most of us will recognise that we've been guilty of being 'optimistic' when projecting build costs. It's almost inevitable as we all want the best we can get, and convince ourselves that it's possible for less than is realistic. If anyone were to ask me what's the best advice I have for anyone considering a self-build, I'd say work out as accurately as you can what you expect it to cost - and then add at least 30%. If you can still afford it then go for it. If not, then scale back your plans or wait until you can afford it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 11, 2019 Author Share Posted October 11, 2019 30 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: 'Their' maybe. Agree that realistic budgeting helps. Someone here, at millstone manor - not me, thinks that Architects should take a course in costing their ideas as part of their charter, the course can be simple as 'think of a number and double it twice', an old friend, who when he retired had spent over £300m on buildings in his career, tells me architects don't do money. You have a guide though - just work on £3K per m2 and the chances are that 80% of the time you will come in under budget! I agree Ive only used three Architects over the years all nice people All great at spending other people’s money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliG Posted October 11, 2019 Share Posted October 11, 2019 (edited) I don't think that all the self build magazines and on line calculators seem to quote prices in the £11-1400/sq are metre range. I reckon from reading people's stories here that a well built house is usually coming in somewhere in the 1500-2000 per square metre range. Lower prices tend to involve doing more work your self, unusual designs as on Grand Designs can easily come in the 2-3000/sq metre range. Now that we are finished I am around £1900/sq metre to build the house, this included a pool and all interior finishes, built in furniture, floors etc. Landscaping was about another £100 per sq metre and fees about another £100 per square metre. According to an on line calculator I just inserted the figures into I should have been £1460 a square metre. For my parents' place I am just going to assume £2000 a square metre and be pleased if it is less than this. Edited October 11, 2019 by AliG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Visti Posted October 11, 2019 Share Posted October 11, 2019 Quantity surveyor. Highly recommend. Really woke us up to what we could afford. Thought we could do it for £1250/m2, but that wasnt bases on anything more than assumptions. We really scaled back and should be able to bring in our build at about £2000/m2. Smaller house, less fancy stuff, but affordable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moira Niedzwiecka Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 +1 to all of the above. I will come in at about £1900/m2 about £400/m2 more than originally planned for. This will be for everything, soup to nuts, including buying neighbours land, easements, all fees & utilities. I have increased the spec on quite a lot of the interior than was planned. As the build developed I felt it warranted it, however, tried very hard not to get too carried away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trew Turner Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 I would also recommend a QS. Some come in at a very reasonable price considering how much realism they bring to a project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recoveringbuilder Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 Has to be a regional thing though I suspect, if we had paid £2k m2 the house would not be worth anywhere near what it had cost to build. We haven’t had it valued yet but going by other similar sized properties in the area currently being marketed the ceiling price seems to be around £400k although we do have a large paddock which will add some value but I wouldn’t have been happy spending much more than we did for this end value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 As previously stated we have come in at 830 m2 With No com premise on finishing which stretched the budget Large German kitchen Three German bathrooms 450m2 of paving The key has been doing most things ourselves and keeping fees to an absolute minimum Anyone looking to build and sell on could shave quite a bit off that figure by fitting out with nice but basic fittings We spent over 25 k on windows and external doors Even with fitting them myself it was still a chunk of money We could have easily cut that figure in half One of the GDs had spent 250k on design before breaking ground and that figure rose That’s an extreme But design costs can easily get out of hand The lady we bought our plot from had extended her cottage 200% ten years ago and suggested using the same architect As we had to do our design in keeping with hers We where happy to do that till she informed us that she had paid over 10k more than ten years ago We were looking to pay a fraction of that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 10 hours ago, nod said: [...] It’s so important for newbies to self build to be realistic when budgeting and accept that some things may cost more than expected Especially when great Crested Newts waltz over your site, your walls get blown over and scrotes nick your tools. Humour and a brilliant, supportive partner help. Hmmm, second thoughts, essential 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Visti Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 It is a time, money and quality question. You can have two of the three, but never all. So a lower £/m2 is always possible, but what do you sacrifice? Your time, or quality of the materials/workmanship? Granted time is a realistic one for self builders to pour in, provided one can spare it. Lower quality is hard for most to swallow given it is often more personal for self builders. I think for me the cashflow from a full time job is more critical to the project, allowing us to get in earlier with our newborn! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 For us it was both I needed time as my wife is very particular and rooks ages to decide on finishes and layouts 18 months looking at kitchens and bathrooms We had no borrowing so the time allowed us to pay for most things out of what we were earning If we had brought a contractor in they would have walked off the job with the amount of delays through changes But we have finished up with a house that is high spec and just as WE ?wanted 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan52 Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 Some one needed to take the guy who built that light house build on grand designs and kick him square between the legs before he started out. A site with extreme aspects like the foundations, the entrance, all the curves etc was always going to cost a complete fortune. The other smaller house he built was beautiful and if he had done just that him and his family would have been more than happy. Sometimes you just need some straight talking person to tell you how it is. He got caught in a wave of emotion and went all in which has cost him everything. The amount of times I said seriously wdf broke all sorts of grand designs records. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 14 minutes ago, Declan52 said: The amount of times I said seriously wdf broke all sorts of grand designs records. I can't bring myself to watch it as I'll end up throwing something at the telly and I can't afford a new one. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 Having now watched that programme, I'm convinced that he just didn't get good advice on costs. It must have been blindingly obvious to anyone with an understanding of the site and the location that what he planned to build was going to cost way more than his initial budget. At one point he mentioned paying £250k in professional fees, for a build that was budgeted at £1.5M. That alone should have rung very loud alarm bells, as I would have thought that fees would have been somewhere around the 10% to 12% mark on a job like that, so £250k would indicate a budget of around £2M to £2.5M. I had to wonder if he ever really looked at, or took notice of, the professional advice he had, as I can't believe that he wasn't warned that the build cost was likely to be well over his £1.5M budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 What kind of income must he of had to borrow three million So I did feel sorry for the two daughters having car boot sales to help out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 I think it all comes down to common sense, and he had none of that. Having car boot sales made me laugh unless he had rolls Royce’s, bentleys etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 My wife said ah music business He looks familiar I told her he’s the guy out of bucks fizz She replied he’s let himself go I used to like him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, nod said: What kind of income must he of had to borrow three million So I did feel sorry for the two daughters having car boot sales to help out Didn't he borrow the money from community lending or something? I read today that he's finalising a plan to finish it and then sell it. Edited October 12, 2019 by Bitpipe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 20 minutes ago, Bitpipe said: Didn't he borrow the money from community lending or something? I read today that he's finalising a plan to finish it and then sell it. It ended with him saying that he had secured borrowing from a hedge fund (8%) Hope to complete But said it was unlikely that he will ever own the build Let alone live in it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nod Posted October 12, 2019 Author Share Posted October 12, 2019 I’m working on a build in the lake district While it’s no grand design There was 16 million ploughed into it when the banks pulled the plug back in 2008 The consortium that have taken over it are going to make a killing Very risky business which most being sold as second homes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 32 minutes ago, nod said: I’m working on a build in the lake district While it’s no grand design There was 16 million ploughed into it when the banks pulled the plug back in 2008 The consortium that have taken over it are going to make a killing Very risky business which most being sold as second homes Our electrician told us of a job he was on where the 'developers' are a couple of guys who made some money with their IT business and bought a plot with permission to build some high end barn style 'eco' houses - having worked on quite a few MBC builds, he knows just how 'un-eco' the barns actually are. Anyway, the builder has been slogging away with a small team and the build schedule has more than doubled from the optimistic one year original plan. The internal finish & spec is quite basic vs the price being asked but 3 have shifted and they're now left with the last unit which will deliver all the profit to the project. However, in the delay to complete the build - planning has since been granted to a small housing estate right on the door step and in full view of the extensive glazing of this last unit, which is making it very hard to sell. Meanwhile, builder has a fleet of shiny new trucks & vans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 2 hours ago, nod said: told her he’s the guy out of bucks fizz He looked a bit young for that. Think he was a producer. There are some jobs that are not that costly when you make a mistake, and/or cost other people money. Other jobs drag you down with it. Kevin did joke that he may not live long enough to see it finished. He should have done it in stages. The tower could have been put up later, it was only a steel structure after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recoveringbuilder Posted October 12, 2019 Share Posted October 12, 2019 He was a producer and he had been behind all the euphoria albums which I used to have to listen to when I had a teenage son at home! Personally I think he wanted a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget, he had been mixing with the stars for too long! I don’t know how he could sleep at night and I don’t blame his wife for getting out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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