Are these costs realistic for a 500m2 house

[Jilly]

Fabulous house!

 

If you are running your own business too, take care of your stress levels as it can be off the scale sometimes, especially if you are PMing. 

 

You can get hand made solid oak cabinets made surprisingly cheaply. B & Q carcasses don't pass the wobble test for me, especially with expensive heavy doors, so maybe rethink that bit?

Some of the stainless steel and black ovens give the right look without being mega bucks. 

 

One hidden cost/stress can be rental costs if you get delays. Live as near to the site as you can is wise advice.

[PeterW]

14 hours ago, miike said:

Roof is the big unknown one currently though, which I'm trying to nail down. 

£50-60k by the time you have added insulation, board, membrane etc - that will not be a cheap job.

 

2nd fix plumbing ..? Includes what..? If it’s all bathrooms / showers etc it is way off.

 

UFH you should be able to halve - your issue will be sequencing as with TF it will have to go on spreader plates or use a secondary floating floor over it.

 

Rainwater seems a mile off - halve that assuming you don’t want copper !!

 

Avoid the sheds like the plague for kitchens - the cabinet quality is rubbish. Look at the second hand kitchen companies but you’ll need new worktops usually so a £15k second hand soon becomes £25k when fitted

 

You’ve nothing in here for scaffolding etc which on a job this size will be £4/5k min, waste will be £2k and so on - prelims of £15k not unusual.

 

You’re saying you want to aim for a £6k/m² finished value but you have to put a lot of  that in to start with. Assuming a decent spec and a land price of £1.1M, I would expect this coming in at around £2600-2800/m² fully finished so all told around the £2.4-2.5M all in which is about right on the profit margins on larger houses - location will be the key player on this and you’re building the wow factor house but need to spend the money.

 

 

 

 

[Kelvin]

Yes our total roofing cost including rainwater goods, standing seam for the main house (143m²) and single ply membrane for the flat roof and dormer (73m²) will come to just under £30k fitted including all the membranes and prep work. That’s hard quotes I’ve contracted to. 
 

To add that this has taken a lot of negotiation and multiple quotes from a number of companies with many more declining to quote at all as too busy. It’s still not a buyers market. If I’d gone with the dearest quotes it was over £40k and I’m building two rectangles with simple roofs. It’s also in rural Scotland so not £6000/m² land. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Kelvin

[Dave Jones]

Reality check

 

lucky to get it done at £5k m2

 

you are going to need top end trades for the shell and finish, IF you have contacts to source them they will be big ££

 

I think your in fantasy land thinking you can get a bond house built cheaper than a bog stand box we all build on here.

[Russell griffiths]

Start thinking about a million and aim to bring it in for 1.2 if you do some good shopping. 

[gavztheouch]

I’m thinking of building a 215m^2 house. Doing 80% of the work myself I think just the material costs alone will be £1500/m2 aiming for £2000/m2. I think most quotes round here, central Scotland, for a turn key solution are around the £3k to £3.5k per m2

 

also worth considering house prices will prob fall over the next few years due to high interest rates

Edited February 25, 2023 by gavztheouch

[Jenki]

1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

Reality check

 

lucky to get it done at £5k m2

 

you are going to need top end trades for the shell and finish, IF you have contacts to source them they will be big ££

 

I think your in fantasy land thinking you can get a bond house built cheaper than a bog stand box we all build on here.

I can't disagree with this. This build is high spec, high end, and on a sloping site.

I think @nod posted he managed to get one of his builds in under £1k /m² and he built it all himself. Materials prices are unstable and inflated,

costs are rising high end labour more so. 

If your budget is that tight and  you are looking at using a shed kitchen I'd worry about the finish you will achieve.

Lots of great advices in this thread, but it's time for some reality.

[saveasteading]

If I was to design a house for the lowest cost per m2 but a durable quality then there are a few basic principles.

1. If land is at a premium, then do what the bulk housing market does. Timber box to a standard, proven design, with brick skin and tiled roof, or poss metal roof (not standing seam).

Small rooms are a feature as they are economical on materials, both structurally and in outer surfaces.

No pretend chimneys.

2. Or, if plenty of land, one big rectangle in steel frame, divided by partitions. Metal roof and walls. Not standing seam

Walls over-clad to taste and budget.

3. In both cases the chunky rectangle is key.

 

Note that in 2. we not only save the stair cost but gain twice that floor area, and need no fire escape. The downside is the added external area. These will balance out. Rooms can be as big as required with savings rather than penalties. 

For 1. I would approach the frame suppliers and ask for a proven design, so there are no design or setup costs.

 

In summary. 1, for a small or conventional house. 2. For larger with bigger rooms.

[miike]

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

£50-60k by the time you have added insulation, board, membrane etc - that will not be a cheap job.

 

2nd fix plumbing ..? Includes what..? If it’s all bathrooms / showers etc it is way off.

 

UFH you should be able to halve - your issue will be sequencing as with TF it will have to go on spreader plates or use a secondary floating floor over it.

 

Rainwater seems a mile off - halve that assuming you don’t want copper !!

 

Avoid the sheds like the plague for kitchens - the cabinet quality is rubbish. Look at the second hand kitchen companies but you’ll need new worktops usually so a £15k second hand soon becomes £25k when fitted

 

You’ve nothing in here for scaffolding etc which on a job this size will be £4/5k min, waste will be £2k and so on - prelims of £15k not unusual.

 

You’re saying you want to aim for a £6k/m² finished value but you have to put a lot of  that in to start with. Assuming a decent spec and a land price of £1.1M, I would expect this coming in at around £2600-2800/m² fully finished so all told around the £2.4-2.5M all in which is about right on the profit margins on larger houses - location will be the key player on this and you’re building the wow factor house but need to spend the money.

 

 

 

 

 

Prelims + scaffolding are included in the basement quote.

Plumbing I've been quoted £2k per bathroom (I've used them to do a new bathroom previously and they were able to complete the plumbing for 2k then as well). Baths/showers/sinks/toilets/taps are at £16k with Lusso stone. I've used them before and their stuff looks good without being hugely expensive. 

 

£6k/m2 would actually be about £400/m2 below the area average, so I'm not targeting the absolute max £ pm2 value. 

 

3 hours ago, Jilly said:

Fabulous house!

 

If you are running your own business too, take care of your stress levels as it can be off the scale sometimes, especially if you are PMing. 

 

You can get hand made solid oak cabinets made surprisingly cheaply. B & Q carcasses don't pass the wobble test for me, especially with expensive heavy doors, so maybe rethink that bit?

Some of the stainless steel and black ovens give the right look without being mega bucks. 

 

One hidden cost/stress can be rental costs if you get delays. Live as near to the site as you can is wise advice.

 

Good advice! This time last year I was working 100+ hours a week and stress was off the chart but I've made the business much more self-sufficient now so I'm comparatively pretty zen now! 

 

1 hour ago, gavztheouch said:

I’m thinking of building a 215m^2 house. Doing 80% of the work myself I think just the material costs alone will be £1500/m2 aiming for £2000/m2. I think most quotes round here, central Scotland, for a turn key solution are around the £3k to £3.5k per m2

 

also worth considering house prices will prob fall over the next few years due to high interest rates

 

There are already 5 year fix mortgage rates below the current BoE base rate, this signals that banks strongly anticipate that the BoE will lower rates below their current level in the next few years. They're high to try and control inflation - that's predicted to drop to 4% by the end of year and then continue to fall after that. When inflation is around the 2% target, the BoE has more flexibility to provide low interest rates, and subsequently low mortgage rates. Also, remember that only about half of owner occupiers actually have a mortgage, the rest own their property outright and aren't affected by current mortgage rates. 

 

There is also a supply/demand issue that will prevent big drops - if it costs more to build a house than you can sell it for, developers will stop building. The housing supply then drops, and if there are more buyers then sellers then prices rise. 

 

2 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

Reality check

 

lucky to get it done at £5k m2

 

you are going to need top end trades for the shell and finish, IF you have contacts to source them they will be big ££

 

I think your in fantasy land thinking you can get a bond house built cheaper than a bog stand box we all build on here.

 

This essentially is a box, with extra glazing. It is three rectangular boxes sat on top of each other, it was specifically designed to be simple to build. 

 

I previously spoke with a turnkey builder that specialises in mansions on the Wentworth estate and even they'd build you a palatial spec house for sub £5k. 

 

This house is quite similar in spec to what I'd be looking to achieve - https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130717802#/?channel=RES_BUY
 

Edited February 25, 2023 by miike

[AliG]

5 hours ago, dpmiller said:

 

respectfully, if you're building YOUR house for YOU to live in, what the hell has the value or brand of kitchen appliances got to do with it?

Clearly people can do whatever they like with their own house. I’m sure plenty of people disagree with my choices.

 

Nevertheless the OP has asked for opinions so it is not like it is unsolicited advice.
 

People would expect to find fittings in a house somewhat commensurate with its value and it can make things feel a little off if you don’t do this.

[AliG]

2 hours ago, miike said:

Prelims + scaffolding are included in the basement quote.

Plumbing I've been quoted £2k per bathroom (I've used them to do a new bathroom previously and they were able to complete the plumbing for 2k then as well). Baths/showers/sinks/toilets/taps are at £16k with Lusso stone. I've used them before and their stuff looks good without being hugely expensive. 

 

£6k/m2 would actually be about £400/m2 below the area average, so I'm not targeting the absolute max £ pm2 value. 

 

On prelims, when you use a main contractor you end up paying maybe £1500-2000 a week for their time. Having built two houses, I found despite having main contractors I still spent an enormous amount of time looking for things, answering questions and so on. In fact on the second one I often felt I would have been as well doing it myself. How do you plan to manage the build if you are busy working? Is it far from where you live? The more you can be on site the better. It is extraordinarily time consuming.

 

Lusso Stone stuff is nice, nice bathroom fittings seem to be a lot more reasonably priced than nice kitchen fittings.

 

Are the basement people putting scaffolding up all the way to the roof level and leaving it when they are done? My parent's house and someone else on here at around half the size were quoted between 12 and 17k for scaffolding.

[nod]

3 hours ago, Jenki said:

I can't disagree with this. This build is high spec, high end, and on a sloping site.

I think @nod posted he managed to get one of his builds in under £1k /m² and he built it all himself. Materials prices are unstable and inflated,

costs are rising high end labour more so. 

If your budget is that tight and  you are looking at using a shed kitchen I'd worry about the finish you will achieve.

Lots of great advices in this thread, but it's time for some reality.

£815 

Pre the wold going mad

It will be interesting to see where we are at with this one I’d expected to be around a 1000 m2 

But unlikely now 

Edited February 25, 2023 by nod

[miike]

1 hour ago, AliG said:

Clearly people can do whatever they like with their own house. I’m sure plenty of people disagree with my choices.

 

Nevertheless the OP has asked for opinions so it is not like it is unsolicited advice.
 

People would expect to find fittings in a house somewhat commensurate with its value and it can make things feel a little off if you don’t do this.

 

I do agree that the feeling of the finishings have to match the value of the property but I think that, especially with contemporary houses, a lot of that expensive feeling comes down to the design. 

 

Have a good look at the finishes of this similar style new build which is under offer at ~£23k sqm currently https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130717802#/media?channel=RES_BUY&id=media1&ref=photoCollage

 

Those finishes and fittings are not ultra expensive. I recognise those bathroom fittings from lusso stone and they would have cost £2-3k per bathroom. Tiling is minimal, instead carrying the wooden floors into the bathroom with plastered walls. 

The stair case is relatively simple but has good use of LED lighting to elevate the premium feel of it. 

The kitchen has maybe 4m2 of granite worktop, the rest is painted wood cabinetry. 

 

More pictures here - https://amazingarchitecture.com/houses/thurlow-road-residence-in-hampstead-london-by-square-feet-architects

[Kelvin]

2 hours ago, AliG said:

 

People would expect to find fittings in a house somewhat commensurate with its value and it can make things feel a little off if you don’t do this.

If you’re not building the house to sell which people are you talking about? 

[Sparrowhawk]

3 hours ago, miike said:

 

[...] Lusso stone. I've used them before and their stuff looks good without being hugely expensive.

I hadn't heard of them before so thanks for the name, that looks good as an option for us.

 

Are there any other fixture suppliers you've found are good without being hugely expensive? We're particularly on the look out for doors, handles and flooring but I'll take every recommendation going to uplevel us from the father-in-law's Howdens catalogue...

[Kelvin]

51 minutes ago, miike said:

 

I do agree that the feeling of the finishings have to match the value of the property but I think that, especially with contemporary houses, a lot of that expensive feeling comes down to the design. 

 

Have a good look at the finishes of this similar style new build which is under offer at ~£23k sqm currently https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130717802#/media?channel=RES_BUY&id=media1&ref=photoCollage

 

 

 

More pictures here - https://amazingarchitecture.com/houses/thurlow-road-residence-in-hampstead-london-by-square-feet-architects

It says the budget was £1.5 million and it’s 300m² so given you recognise some of the finishes aren’t ultra expensive it still makes it a very expensive build. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Kelvin

[Thorfun]

4 hours ago, miike said:

 https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130717802#/?channel=RES_BUY

£7m! **** me. that's insane.

[nod]

2 hours ago, nod said:

£815 

Pre the wold going mad

Others on here will tell you that to keep the costs low it’s full on 

Slating first thing joists from mid morning 

Just myself and my wife 

 

[AliG]

1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

If you’re not building the house to sell which people are you talking about? 

 

It could actually be you yourself. Everyone knows what decisions they feel comfortable with and sometimes budget means you have to just make do with something which is fair enough, but I don't think this is the case here.

 

Our kitchen designer drew it up with £12k of Gaggenau fridge and freezer. I would have felt absolutely scammed spending £6k on a fridge, so it can also be that you feel you have spent too much. But equally if I had built a stunning £3m house then skimped on the last £20-30k to get some nice fittings I would feel that I had let the house down and not done as nice a job as I could have. So it is just a matter of finding the right spot where you are comfortable and balancing costs with what feels right for you and your house.

 

In this case I think @miike has the right idea for the look and there are ways to keep the cost of that down such as an ex display or used kitchen but it will still be part of pushing the cost up. Often I have found that I can get some of this stuff quite reasonably on line, we bought a most of our lights on AliExpress at a fraction of the cost here, but the fitting costs are often more than the cost of materials. I was only talking a few thousand on the kitchen and tiles, the roof is likely to be the biggest variance versus the budget.

[Mr Punter]

I suspect you will end up more than £2000/m2 but if the location is decent it will still work out OK.

 

It is hard to pin down costs, but having decent ground conditions and access will be helpful.  The work packages may appeal to contractors as there is enough to be bothered but not so much that it will swallow too all their resource.

 

I like the stone wall bisecting the house.  I did similar-ish with a brick wall on a bungalow a few years ago but did not go through the roof.

 

 

 

[PeterW]

7 hours ago, miike said:

Plumbing I've been quoted £2k per bathroom (I've used them to do a new bathroom previously and they were able to complete the plumbing for 2k then as well).

There is a big difference between plumbing a replacement bathroom and then plumbing a new one - where is the £16k in your list for Lusso ..?

 

The big issue you will have is labour costs assuming you’re in the South / South East as decent labour is scarce, and good labour is expensive 

[Trw144]

Following closely as it sounds a bit like my project, 600m2, three stories and into the bank. Fortunately a friend is a builder and has experience of basements so hoping to save a chunk on this. 

[ToughButterCup]

16 hours ago, AliG said:

...

Everyone knows what decisions they feel comfortable with and sometimes budget means you have to just make do with something which is fair enough,

...

 

Ughhhhh. Too right.

The biggest change in my attitude to our build  revolves round  one number : Predicted Cost to Completion.

Over time that number has become more accurate, (8 years) because we can now 'see' the end.

 

Sometimes when considering the next few cost headings, we look at that number and think - Oh FFS - and at other times -Yep, thats fine - .

But mostly there's a sucking of teeth. 

When I started, it was going to be - No Compromise. Now its - Lets get the job done. 

 

Latest tooth sucker: why on earth do we have to have MVHR ? - Our windows and one  door is open for 6 months of the year.

Cheap MVHR therefore or all bells and whistles? 

[AliG]

 

12 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Cheap MVHR therefore or all bells and whistles? 

 

We have Dantherm MVHR units, nothing fancy and do the job just fine. I don't even use the auto humidity sensors, nor do I use the different timed programmes, I found that they always ran faster when it was damp outside. I just set them on the lowest setting and leave them. I did have to turn them up when we had 9 people staying in the summer as the house got too hot.

[Kelvin]

@AliG I agree with your point about making compromises with the build. I’d imagine most self-builders  have to do it. However this wasn’t really the original point you made which was ‘people expect to find fittings on a house somewhat commensurate with its value…’ That’s fine if you’re building it to sell or show off to your friends. But if you’re building it for you none of that matters. 

 

Personally I couldn’t give two stuffs what people think or expect. I’m not a brand person. I fit things based on performance and value rather than the badge on the front of it. If I had my way I’d have all the names removed from the appliances anyway. 
 

The OPs house will look and feel stunning whether he fits Miele ovens or some lesser brand.