Novice Selfbuilders in Northern Ireland - Build Cost

[HillsideNewBuild]

Hi Everyone, 

 

Recent forum lurker and now in the initial stages of planning a build in Newtownabbey area. Hoping to build T shaped house on family land - approx 0.5 acres and flat surrounded by trees.

Footprint approx.140 m2 and 220 m2 overall. Father in law has started digging the trenches, laying ducting for utilities and putting down pipes for drainage so hoping to save money there and on future landscaping work.

 

From reading the forum posters work off specific build costs calculated to an overall price and I do intend to create a spreadsheet for this, but as we're complete beginners a ballpark figure would be helpful at this point. We've been told the average build is about £140-150/sq ft so we're hoping costs may have come down a bit by the end of next year which is realistically the earliest we'd be starting. If not we'll have to look at reducing the size.

 

As neither of us have any previous building experience we're going to go with a contractor. We'd LIKE to keep the build cost under 300k with a mortgage through Ecology but not sure if this figure is realistic given the increase in material and labour costs.

 

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated and I look forward to picking everyone's brains in the future!

 

[Dave Jones]

min £1500m2 for basic, complicated and nice fittings more like £2000m2.

 

Best bet is to get your plans drawn up and have them QS'd then you will know to the penny what it will cost, its cheap to do as well. 

 

https://www.estimators-online.com/

[JohnMo]

We are at £1700/m2, ( had quite a bit of ground work due to site) and have done loads myself, high spec, if your doing a main contractor you will easily hit £2000/m2

[Andehh]

Yep, assume £2k psqm and I think that is a "reasonable" starting point for a good spec house.

[HillsideNewBuild]

5 hours ago, Andehh said:

Yep, assume £2k psqm and I think that is a "reasonable" starting point for a good spec house.

Thanks for the replies so far everyone. @Andehh I see you're in Sussex, could prices in the South East be a good bit higher than Northern Ireland? Our architect gave us the £1400 figure based on recent BCI report

[JohnMo]

We are based in NE Scotland, labour costs are quite low, for your info

[Conor]

Last time I checked we were at  £1350/m² but I'm sure it will be nearer £1500/m² by the time we finish. It's not just materials, I'm struggling to get any trade in for less than £200 a day.

 

You may find that of you reduce the size of the footprint, your costs won't go down that much. The bigger the build, the cheaper the m² becomes. You'd need to be losing rooms or making it much small to save significant amounts.

 

I can't see prices coming down any time soon so keep on pushing.

[HillsideNewBuild]

Cheers @JohnMo that's good to know.

[HillsideNewBuild]

11 minutes ago, Conor said:

Last time I checked we were at  £1350/m² but I'm sure it will be nearer £1500/m² by the time we finish. It's not just materials, I'm struggling to get any trade in for less than £200 a day.

 

You may find that of you reduce the size of the footprint, your costs won't go down that much. The bigger the build, the cheaper the m² becomes. You'd need to be losing rooms or making it much small to save significant amounts.

 

I can't see prices coming down any time soon so keep on pushing.

Cheers @Conor good luck with finishing your own build. So much respect for anyone overseeing their own projects, I'd lose my hair at the thought of it!