Permission to build a traditional house

[dakid]

My wife and I are considering building our next home, and I was wondering whether someone might be able to say whether we're likely to be able to build the kind of house we're after.

 

Essentially, we want to build a Georgian house that looks like it was originally an 18th Century rectory.

 

e.g. something after this fashion, albeit on a slightly smaller scale

)

 

What I'm concerned about is that I'm going to really struggle to achieve this with my budget (around £750k including plot, and a minimum of 250 sq.m). Might anyone be able to offer an opinion on whether I'm dreaming of the impossible, and to therefore bring me back to reality? The ideal location is village or edge-of-village, and within a 1 hour commute of London, but if there's any flexibility it's most readily to be found in moving to within a 1.5 hour commute to London! I'm also very worried about whether a planning officer would ever let us build something that looks like it's not modern and directly comparable to the properties around it (because these style of properties are not all that common).

 

Subjective opinions and thoughts are really most welcome on such a vague question, and thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer!!

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

6 minutes ago, dakid said:

[...]

Might anyone be able to offer an opinion on whether I'm dreaming of the impossible, and to therefore bring me back to reality?

[...]

 

Here's a statistic that will help you. £1500 (of living space)  per square meter is the 'norm' around here for a typical 'round here' house. Find out your 'round-here' price.

 

You need to network - widely. Widely means know the planning officers,  the relevant estate agents. You will need an excellent planner working for you. You will need to read as much as you can. And watch the politics; local and national like a hawk. The micropolitics can sometimes matter as much as national level stuff. Looking at estate agent windows is often helpful.

 

My gut feeling is that your budget may be tight. Read widely, and talk. You'll find that over time your taste changes. It'll have to because of the sheer number of competing pressures.

 

[AliG]

The fact that it is a Georgian style house will make little difference to the cost. Indeed it can be a relatively simple shape so cheaper to build. The more complicated a shape of house you have the more it will cost, think lots of corners and different roof pitches or large areas of glass and curved walls.

 

So £1500 a square metre should be fine. The other big swing factors are the cost of architects and a main contractor. These will add considerably versus managing the project yourself and building something less bespoke. But you should still be able to come in at around £1500 per square metre.

 

There are various hidden costs in planning such as ground surveys, bats, local council fees etc depending on the plot that could conceivably run into 5 figures also.

 

The real issue will be what will a plot cost to buy. As a rule of thumb, I feel that people on the site are finding that they are building houses for roughly what they are worth. Developers spend less building houses due to lower spec and economies of scale. This effectively creates their profit margin and allows you to buy a plot for the same or more than a developer might pay.

 

If a similar 250sq metre house in the area you are interested in costs £750 or less then there is a good chance you can buy a piece of land and build one for the same or a modestly lower price. The harder land is to come by, though the tighter the margins get.

 

Think of it this way -

 

Developer

House price 750,000

Profit margin (15-20%) £130000

Build cost (1200/sq m) £300000

Land value £320000

 

Self builder

House value £750000

Profit margin 0

Build cost 375000

Land value 375000

 

So you should be able to outbid a developer to buy a plot and come in within your budget if that is the cost of a similar house. You might even save some money, although my experience is that developers are willing to bid to lower margins due to the difficulty in finding land to build on.

 

One issue you might have is a developer will often try to squeeze as much as possible out of a site, so if the site can fit a 6 bedroom house or 6 flats it will be worth more to them than you. It won't be easy finding a plot that is just right in the SE within easy commute to London.

 

Generally speaking if a site is well advertised and has not sold it is probably quite highly priced. Certainly in Edinburgh recently I believe individual house plots have gone from uneconomic prices and they are getting a premium because people want to build their own house and their are few nice sites available. I know of two sites that have been sold for similarly sized houses to what you propose for around £400-450k with final house values at £800k they look pretty pricey to me. I would say that SE prices outside London are generally still higher than Edinburgh although it varies enormously by area, some are way more expensive than others.

 

[Mikey_1980]

I would say its entirely possible if you can get a plot in the right location at the right price, our build is within a 15 minute walk of a directline trainnto london waterloo which takes 55 minutes and 4 stops to get there.  Our total build cost including the plot was around £850k, ours is around 300 m2 and we didn't really skimp on anything quality wise we still have lots of painting and tiling left to do but have been living it happily for the past 9 months.  Our house is a complicated shape with lots of glazing which ultimately addedd alot to the cost of roofing, plastering and glazing etc.

[PeterW]

Easy - just go North !! South of London the prices are silly...!

 

You can get a plot near Grantham / Newark to build on for around £275k, that house would "fit" well in a semi rural plot and £375k build gives you £100k for contingencies and an East Coast season ticket for 20 years...

[Ferdinand]

I suspect that you may be spoilt for choice for possible areas within one hour of London .. which could be anything from nearly Coventry to Swindon to Aylesbury to High Wycombe to Folkestone to much of Suffolk and Essex, and some others in Kent on the train, plus lots of possibles on the Thameslink overground.

 

I think I would suggest a focus on the type of area you want and lifestyle, which side of London, and what other criteria are must haves and would-be-nice's, and to understand the different stages of planning (or rebuild and replace) you can buy plots at and the money-risk trade offs. Then record that checklist.

 

Then I might be inclined to look myself, but also to think about engaging a plot-finder general.

 

As it is, you have a possible area of perhaps 12k square miles, which is a lot !

 

For places, the areas in the National Forest are becoming very attractive.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

THis Mail article has a nice Time to London commuter map.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-4136778/The-cheapest-places-buy-house-commuting-London.html

[AliG]

Do you already commute to London?

 

I hate commuting, hence I live in London during the week and home in Scotland at the weekend. I actually spend less time commuting than some of my workmates.

 

If you already commute to London, you'll know what places make a sensible commute option.

 

For example the map @Ferdinand has supplied says that Henley on Thames is 45 minutes from london. That is true the train from Paddington to Henley takes between 40 minutes and an hour, mostly an hour. Sadly that means that total commute time is 1.75 hours if you work in The City versus about 1.25hours if you work near Paddington. Sometimes further away places can be a faster cimmute if they are on a direct fast railway line.

 

Basically start with which part of London you will likely be working in and which stations serve that area then find places served by those stations. Then try and narrow it down to a few places that fit your commuting and lifestyle criteria and budget. By the time you then need to find a plot I would imagine it will be a long process.

[Temp]

I'm also very worried about whether a planning officer would ever let us build something that looks like it's not modern and directly comparable to the properties around it

 

That's why it's usually recommend to find the plot first then decide what sort of house to put on it.

 

Being three storey might also be a problem unless nearby houses are also tall. Lots of three story houses are being built these days but they are mostly on modern estates where they are attempting to cram them in.

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2017 by Temp

[Ferdinand]

Are there serviced plots available more widely now?