Advantage is the shell goes up quickly and you can then do the interior fit yourself.
linky
HTH.
BOL, Pewe10
I'm going on saturday to view a derelict house near me that has come on the market, I've seen it myself but I'm taking a builder as I'm expecting him to say its beyond economical repair so will be viewing it as a potential building plot. Our budget will be fairly tight for a complete new build but I'll be expecting to do as much diy as I can once we have a shell built. I'm too excited to wait till saturday to discuss the money side of it to see of its doable so has anyone done a similar project recently that could comment on budgets
well its worth getting an idea of price out of the builder, but its better if you know a bricklayer. A decent bricky wont need much direction, will
know a joiner to put a lid on it, might work cheaper for cash, might be happy to have you labouring with him at times if you want. Benefit of a
builder is he knows all these chaps and can organise it all, but you pay for the benefit and he might still be a tosser.
Extentions are usually quoted as 1000 per square metre of floor, as a bare shell, but i dont know how accurate that is for a full build.
£1000 sq m seems rather a lot, probably looking at 100 sq m x2 floors so £200k will be out of the question for a bare shell! It must be possible to do it cheaper than that isn't it?
Might be worth having a look at Pottons or similar.
Advantage is the shell goes up quickly and you can then do the interior fit yourself.
linky
HTH.
BOL, Pewe10
The construction cost of a house is normally about a 1/3rd of its sale value.
Thats a fairly good starting point. Obviously depends a lot on what you actually build etc.
quote:
Originally posted by andrew-theasby
£1000 sq m seems rather a lot, probably looking at 100 sq m x2 floors so £200k will be out of the question for a bare shell! It must be possible to do it cheaper than that isn't it?
My single story kitchen extension (foundations, blocks, plaster, render) with no internal fit out cost me about £1200/sq meter. Although the quality
is not perfect. (you get what you pay for)...
I would have thought starting from a blank pad the cost per sq m should be better.... Economies of scale and all that... Its all about project
managing to minimise waste (in terms of materials and time)
If you are fairly confident you know what you are doing (or read the correct books first) I would, as said above, be looking for brickies, chippies
etc rather than a full on builder... You just need to make sure they are going to stay for the duration of the job. (IE, Don't pay them
upfront)
Have you considered something like Scandia Hus (spelling might not be right).... Prefab, designed to spec off site.... Big upfront cost but may
actually work out pretty good value especially as you are guaranteed quality...
A house builder will throw them up for £750-£800 /m2
Small extensions are not comparable to a 200m2 house as they will be far more expensive. Think how much external wall (and foundation, windows etc)
you have per m2 of floor area on a typical extension.
It very much depends on the spec you want to build to, which is why I said 1/3 of the sale price is a good benchmark.
Affordable houses start at about £150k and cost 50-60k to build.
A £3m house will cost about £1m to build and be sitting on about an acre of land at £1m per acre.
The locost way is to project manage yourself and source materials.
Get quotes for work by the square metre, not the finished product and challenge prices.
My parents built their own house using experienced trades and doing all the grunt work, laying out bricks for the next days building after they
finished work themselves saves a lot of money and if the trades have everything to hand then they are more efficient.
They purchased the plot, had the plans drawn up to their own design and ended up with a house that was far better than they could ever have afforded
to buy outright, took a year to build.
Hard to say what the final value will be, I'm hoping I can do it for a total spend of 200k including the plot as thats all I have, but its not easily comparable to anything near by although it will be the cheapest 4 bed in the village if thats all its worth. Its right next to a busy main road, but I'd be doing everything with sound proofing. and reducing nose in mind. Its a large plot probably 4x my current 2 bed bungalow (worth £140k) and its got 2 luxury £450k houses closest to it and fields on the other side. Probably should be building a luxury house on it and selling it, but I can't afford that, and I also want a house with a good size garden which I also can't afford in our village, so basically it will be an economical design, rather than being cheaply built, which will hopefully be our home for life.
But there is always a but.
I have been dabbling in property for ages, refurbed a few houses and never afraid of a challenge.
Would I project manage a house build? possibly, possibly not. There is a great deal of detail which is easily missed. I know of numerous cases where
people though they were saving a large wedge of cash by project managing, only to find out there were lots of gaps and jobs they just never realised
needing doing. And once they had been done, and all the snagging, they ended up paying as much out as getting somebody to cover the whole job, plus
the amount of aggro.....
I am shortly moving house, and will be building a new garage. Well, I will project manage that, should get me warmed up for the house extension. I may
wimp out and get a trusted builder to do the shell, and leave me to sort the rest myself, not sure yet.
BTW the house we are buying is about 9x6m over 2 floors, just over 100m2 I guess, plus an existing attached garage and a silly small 2 story
extension. Rebuild costs came in at 220k according to the survey so about £2k a sq m. Guess that includes demolition and reinstating
foundations..........
Buy the plot.
Knock the house down and build a large quality house using local tradesmen on a fixed price rate.
Fund it all on an interest only mortgage.
Sell it and use the profit to build the house you really want with a fraction of the mortgage you would of had.
Takes a bit of time and balls but - works.
quote:
Originally posted by I predict a Riot
Buy the plot.
Knock the house down and build a large quality house using local tradesmen on a fixed price rate.
Fund it all on an interest only mortgage.
Sell it and use the profit to build the house you really want with a fraction of the mortgage you would of had.
Takes a bit of time and balls but - works.
Geez! $100 a square foot is a ridiculously Low price.
Lucky if it's square let alone plumb. for that price.
Count on $200/ft square minimum for a 'fit to sleep in' home.
(been an Architect for 30 years )
$476,000? 
One thing I would be looking at in a new build is getting the insulation and air tightness right. Im only looking into it for my own interest at the
moment but the airtightness is relatively new and insulation requirments are increasing and neather are easy or cheap to sort retrospectively and its
something that needs watching closely to ensure holes are sealed where services pass through vapour barriers, etc.
Daniel
Use these guys house up in 2days
[Edited on 28-11-12 by mangogrooveworkshop]
Its a bit of a 'how long is a bit of string' question.
The house may be falling down, but the drains, foundations amins and water supplies may or may not need re-doing.
If it's brick build and a soft mortar was used, you may be able to reclaim a large number of bricks. If the roof is a decent slate, you may
salvage 60+% of them. All these things save money. I had a 8ft high double brick wall 8m long built for £800
of labout the other year - your 'brick'' area would only be about (10m2*4 wall*2.5*height) 12 times that, so 10k for labour, assuming
your foundations are ok, you supply scaffold, a cement mixer, sand and cement, reclaim the bricks, and stack them ready, and have agreed a fixed price
and do not pay anything until the agreed stage has been reached......
I'm afraid you will need to go through the whole process bit by bit to get a reliable costing.
My Dad, (who was a mechanical engineer before he retired), built a house of about 150m2 for 80k 10 years ago, by self managing. It is super insulated
and heated by a 5 kw air/air heat pump. You can build cheaper or more expensive depending on your taste - he spent about 5k on the kitchen for example
(including the lights, tiles, built in fridge/cooker), but you could do it for 3 or for 30k. Some things you can do on the cheap initially, and change
later (upgrading a kitchen for example is not hard, as long as you have a layout you like and are not changing the positions of anything). You can
paint your kitchen walls for example, and tile them at some time in the future to keep initial costs down....
Best of luck anyway,
Regards
Hugh
I have built three 6 bedroom houses (same style) worth £450-500k each for just £80k each but that is doing all the work myself, having a builder do it
would have tripled the cost
Helps to have grown up with a house building family though
I hate restoring old houses best thing to do is just flatten them and build a new house
[Edited on 28/11/12 by Mr Whippy]
Seriously consider a timber framed house (can be quick and cost effective). My dad has just finished building a 3 bed house, he made all the fames
himself, and it took him and his mate four months to finish (including demolishing the bungalow and digging the footings etc). The only help they had
was with plumbing and electrics. Planning permission was granted when he finished slating the roof 
Oh BTW he is now 69 years old!!
The 1/3 is a good rule of thumb, so if you spend 100,000 on the plot you would expect to build something suitable for aound 100,000 and it could sell
for around 300,000.
i bought a pair of derelict cottages and it worked out cheaper to knock down than re furb , if the house is old brick and clay tile then the
demolition should pay for the salveage ,i ended up paying £600 for a cleared site .
project managed it myself and with a lot of my labour on internal work came in at £600 per sq metre . good time to build at the moment with plenty of
competition for work .
I'm heating a lot of hippos points to make me consider a timber framed design, but what are the negative points to consider?
quote:
Originally posted by andrew-theasby
I'm heating a lot of hippos points to make me consider a timber framed design, but what are the negative points to consider?
Self managing is a slippery slope if you do not really know what you are doing. It is very easy to miss little bits and pieces, think of when you
build a kit car and add up how much you think it will cost. Does it ever come in at that budget?
If you have experience or have trustworthy experienced friends or family then go for a self build. If you aren't really sure then its in your
interest to talk to builders who will manage it for you. Get them to commit to a firm price up front and allow yourself a 5-10% contingency sum for
paying for those hidden extras. The advantage of this approach is that you have cost certaintity, before you start you know pretty much what the final
cost will be.
Managing it yourself can be cheaper but it can be a lot of stress, take longer and cost more.
Judgement you have to make really.
In my experience timber frame is being used quite a bit now and is common for apartment blocks of 3-4 storeys. Not seeing it so much on the standard 2
storey homes.
Insulation and air tightness is good but you also need to consider ventilation otherwise you can have serious condensation problems.
[Edited on 28/11/12 by MRLuke]
