Hello members,

My name is Colin and I’m belligerent/resilient/misguided enough to think I can find a plot in West Berkshire or South Oxfordshire. My chances of success have been rated at about 2% but I’m carrying on for the time being!

Despite the many hours already spent I have only just discovered your forum and have already started to read the plot section. Here are the pros and cons of my situation:

Advantages

·         Have just retired – so plenty of time at present

·         Preferred budget – circa £800K all in

·         I only need a small plot – maybe 0.1 acre or less

·         Have attended the NSBRC Land finding course – I’m trying all the angles they suggested, and more. It’s the best investment I’ve made so far

·         I own most of the standard books on self-build

·         Have spent about a year on this R&D already

·         Am flexible with design and size

·         Small developers having given up locally, they say there’s no profit to be made

Disadvantages

·         Have just retired – I can’t spend 10 years looking

·         I want to stay within reach of facilities- shops, bus route, etc.

·         Average house price locally is perhaps £500K-£600K.

·         On Rightmove today ‘within 1 mile’ there are 20 houses for sale over £2 Million

·         Medium size developers are active here

·         Prestige developers are active here

I look forward to reading more in the forum and have made some discoveries already, let’s hope I can turn knowledge into action.

Welcome to the forum, Colin. I think you'll learn a lot more here than from the books - this was true for me, anyway.

I rate your chances of finding a suitable plot as being much higher. You need to be looking for a bungalow or small house that deserves to be knocked down. Rightmove will be telling you, "in need of modernisation", but you know what to do.

Don't restrict yourself to teeny weeny plots. Others who know more than me (that's almost everyone here) may correct me, but I reckon a 0.1 acre plot (which might be 20m x 20m, for example) would be frustrating to build on, even if you're only building a small house. It's good to have space to store building materials, site office/shelter, site loo, parking for trades, etc. Without this space to help things along, builders will add a sort of London premium to their quotes.

Welcome.

Have to looked at tatty houses that can be torn down and then built on.

My neighbours house just sold, £2k less than I paid for mine 21 years ago.

Distress sales can be bargains.

Edited yesterday at 16:251 day by SteamyTea

I’m not sure what exactly you are looking for but I just spent 10 mins on rightmove and found half a dozen nice plots within 30miles of south Oxfordshire.

All around £400,000 to £450,000. Admittedly I just had a glance.

Hi Colin, you're preaching to the converted here, but have you reflected on why specifically you want to self build? Would a deep refurb scratch a similar itch for example? Those opportunities come with more compromise but may be easier to find. You say flexible on design and size but must have an idea?

If you started from say £3000/m2, how far would building what you want/need eat into that £800K? That's going to give you an idea what sort of trade offs you'll need to make on house design&size versus affording the plot to build on.

Without sounding pessimistic, you may have to pay quite a lot over the odds to make a dream a reality in a reasonable time frame (and when you're standing in a muddy plot later it won't always feel like a dream!)

20 hours ago, Tony L said:

0.1 acre plot (which might be 20m x 20m, for example) would be frustrating to build on

I don't disagree (ours is smaller and the juggling in early stages was challenging) but that's smaller than typical urban housing density if Colin wants to be close to shops and amenities.

Others have mentioned knock down and rebuild - knock down half can be a possibility too.

Take a larger property on a generous plot, leave enough of the original to be viable to resell and knock down the rest so there's now room for a plot to build on. That can lessen the pain versus a clean knock down and rebuild but there are less suitable properties about.

I used to live in South Oxon. The best I did was bought a small semi detached house with a large garden and extended sideways almost doubling the size of the house.

The only plots I ever saw were knock down and rebuild and the "plot" cost pretty much full house price before knocking down and for me the maths never stacked up. I only got to scratch the self build itch (twice) when I moved to the Highlands.

Consider looking for something "unusual" that needs converting/refurbishing. e.g. old water tower, above ground reservoir. HAve you spoken to any local auction houses - sometimes they get some "pigs ears" that can be turned into a silk purse :-)

Good luck with the search