Hello

[Hunter10]

Hi everyone,

 

Mainly joined for tips on finding a self-build plot, as been looking for a while and struggling to find something suitable.

 

Look forward to chatting with you all!

[flanagaj]

Welcome.  This is a great forum, and there are some very knowledgeable folk on here.   

Our search for a plot started 20 years ago, and during that time, I did the following.

1) Wrote more letters than I can count to landowners who had prospective plots (spotted during my cycling rides around Dorset).  I think I received one email to say no.  The rest just completely ignored me. 

2) Paid £50 and signed up to the Dorset Self Build Register (£50 down the drain)

3) Used PlotBrowser - the FREE listing of house-building plots and self-build land to look at potential plots, but never had the cash in the bank to enable me to move quickly.

Plots are so few and far between, and to give yourself a fighting chance, you need to have the money in the bank, and ready to go.   Seeing a plot, and then trying to get financing arranged takes weeks if not months.  Most people will not wait, and there will always be someone who has the cash in the bank.
 

 In the end we got so fed up, that we sold our house and moved into rented (also tried that tactic in 2014), and we found our plot on Rightmove, but we stopped looking just in Dorset, and expanded our search area to Hampshire and Wiltshire.

It is a frustrating task, especially, if you don't have huge amounts of cash sitting in the bank, but that being said, you might be fortunate to have a £1,000,000 for a plot.  In which case, your task will be much easier.

Good luck.

Edited Sunday at 09:09 by flanagaj

[jack]

Welcome to BuildHub.

 

2 hours ago, Hunter10 said:

Mainly joined for tips on finding a self-build plot, as been looking for a while and struggling to find something suitable.

 

For many, this is one of the biggest challenges of self-build, especially if you live in more built up areas with not much space and a lot of competition for houses.

We got lucky by buying a small, tired old bungalow on a plot that needed some imagination to get the most of, back in 2012 when the housing market was still in the doldrums after the 2008 financial crisis. I'm not sure whether the economics of that make sense any more, but it's worth considering.

 

Buying to knock down and rebuild costs more but is arguably lower risk than a lot of other options. You have utilities in place (don't underestimate how much that it can cost to get them connected in some places) and can at least be sure that you'll almost certainly get planning for something, especially if there are a lot of larger houses around it (as was the case for us). You also aren't competing for the rare building plot that comes up. Around my way (Hampshire/Surrey borders), actual building plots tend to be expensive, because you're competing with people like us but also developers.

Good luck.

[Hunter10]

Thanks for the replies!

 

Unfortunately don’t have funds readily available, so thanks for the advice around this.

 

We have close personal ties to a construction firm, so don’t see the building side being too much of an issue, just finding the right plot at the right price point! We are looking across the whole of County Durham, and would potentially contemplate further north/south if the right plot became available.

 

Thanks again!