Buying land to build a house

Buying land to build a house

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JapanRed

Original Poster:

1,559 posts

110 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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We’ve been tentatively keeping an eye on the market for 6-9 months now, in the search of land to build a house. We’ve only been looking on Rightmove - is there anywhere else I should be looking as literally nothing suitable is coming up in our area? All we keep seeing is little bits of land in stty villages for £100k or land going for £1M in really expensive places.

Our budget would be £200-400k for the land which should be acceptable for the areas we are looking in. Am I missing something?

joshcowin

6,775 posts

175 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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Speak to agents? Look at land auctions?

Equus

16,768 posts

100 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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JapanRed said:
All we keep seeing is little bits of land in stty villages for £100k or land going for £1M in really expensive places.
I've said it before, but Rule 1 of self-building is that any plot of land being marketed as such is already grossly overpriced.

It is possible to find suitable land at very low cost (sometimes even effectively 'free'), but it's not easy: it requires knowledge, legwork, determination and effort.

If you want to stick to the conventional route and pay through the nose, however, the Local Planning Authority in the area(s) you are looking should maintain a 'self build register', which you can sign up to (LPA's themselves now have a legal obligation to deliver adequate supply of land to self-builders... but that doesn't mean that the land has to be reasonably priced or in decent locations).

There are also various 'plotfinder' websites - look for adverts in the self-builder magazines - but again, Rule 1 applies.

Edited by Equus on Tuesday 16th October 15:00

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
JapanRed said:
We’ve been tentatively keeping an eye on the market for 6-9 months now, in the search of land to build a house. We’ve only been looking on Rightmove - is there anywhere else I should be looking as literally nothing suitable is coming up in our area? All we keep seeing is little bits of land in stty villages for £100k or land going for £1M in really expensive places.

Our budget would be £200-400k for the land which should be acceptable for the areas we are looking in. Am I missing something?
I guess all those plots have outline PP?

As well as looking at plots that don't currently have PP, are you looking at existing houses that you could demolish?

JapanRed

Original Poster:

1,559 posts

110 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
joshcowin said:
Speak to agents? Look at land auctions?
What agents? Estate agents or specialists? Can you point me in the direction of land auctions I didn’t know they existed.

Equus said:
I've said it before, but Rule 1 of self-building is that any plot of land being marketed as such is already grossly overpriced.

It is possible to find suitable land at very low cost (sometimes even effectively 'free'), but it's not easy: it requires knowledge, legwork, determination and effort.
Thanks. Can you expand upon this?

TooMany2cvs said:
I guess all those plots have outline PP?

As well as looking at plots that don't currently have PP, are you looking at existing houses that you could demolish?
Yeah most of them already have outline PP. we have considered existing houses that could be demolished but they all seem to be expensive. We are keen to live in a “nice/desirable” village and have a decent garden. All these houses seem to be £500k+ and that’s before we knock down and build again. Guess we might one day drop on a small house/bungalow with a big garden in a nice location but haven’t seen anything yet.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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JapanRed said:
Equus said:
I've said it before, but Rule 1 of self-building is that any plot of land being marketed as such is already grossly overpriced.

It is possible to find suitable land at very low cost (sometimes even effectively 'free'), but it's not easy: it requires knowledge, legwork, determination and effort.
Thanks. Can you expand upon this?

What he means is that you can, for example, look at the houses in the area you are considering on google maps or OS maps, and see if there are any possibilities of 'creating' a plot by either buying part of one or multiple gardens.

Or there may be some land that no builder would touch because it's not viable to build something that would make a profit but that may be ideal for what you want.

Being 'the first' to discover these types of plots, and approaching the owners and getting an option to buy, is where you can make a killing but it does involve hard work and skill/knowledge.

Edited to add: and probably luck smile

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 16th October 15:21

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
JapanRed said:
Yeah most of them already have outline PP. we have considered existing houses that could be demolished but they all seem to be expensive. We are keen to live in a “nice/desirable” village and have a decent garden. All these houses seem to be £500k+ and that’s before we knock down and build again. Guess we might one day drop on a small house/bungalow with a big garden in a nice location but haven’t seen anything yet.
What part of the country are you looking in?

Don't forget that there's a lot of infill developers who've already looked at damn near every plot in the country that might vaguely stack up over the years - and those in "nice" areas where the vendor hadn't already done the maths and ramped the price have long since been bought and developed...

Equus

16,768 posts

100 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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garyhun said:
JapanRed said:
Equus said:
I've said it before, but Rule 1 of self-building is that any plot of land being marketed as such is already grossly overpriced.

It is possible to find suitable land at very low cost (sometimes even effectively 'free'), but it's not easy: it requires knowledge, legwork, determination and effort.
Thanks. Can you expand upon this?

What he means is that you can, for example, look at the houses in the area you are considering on google maps or OS maps, and see if there are any possibilities of 'creating' a plot by either buying part of one or multiple gardens.

Or there may be some land that no builder would touch because it's not viable to build something that would make a profit but that may be ideal for what you want.

Being 'the first' to discover these types of plots, and approaching the owners and getting an option to buy, is where you can make a killing but it does involve hard work and skill/knowledge.

Edited to add: and probably luck smile
...or you find a dwelling in a sustainable location (<< that bit is important: just because there's a house on there already doesn't mean that the Planners will allow another one) with a garden big enough plot to separate off a plot for development, and arrange bridging finance to buy the whole thing, obtain PP and sell the 'parent' property on, so that the original vendor doesn't slam you with Rule 1.

... or there is land in other uses, in locations that might be viable to obtain Planning consent

... or there is the possibility of a Paragraph 79 design.

...or there is the possibility of a Class Q conversion.

I can't give you a simple, idiot-proof formula, unfortunately. If there was such a thing, everyone would exploit it, and it would cease to work.

There is no shortage of land in the UK. What there is a shortage of is land that can gain Planning permission.

It's the Planning system that obstructs development, so it's a case of gaining sufficient understanding of that system to allow you to identify where land might have potential that is not immediately obvious to the casual observer.

There are no quick and easy solutions: you've got to learn the system first (or pay someone who knows it already).


anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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Equus, do you, or anyone you know, offer a quality plot finding/plot creation services? There are many advertising plot services but none really offer anything over what's already got planning or advertised elsewhere.

I found my first plot through word of mouth but will be looking further afield in the next few months and a service whereby somebody charges a reasonable amount for locating/creating those plots not available to all-and-sundry would be great for self-builders.

Equus

16,768 posts

100 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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garyhun said:
Equus, do you, or anyone you know, offer a quality plot finding/plot creation services?
Yes, it's a service we offer.

But you'd be surprised how few people are willing to take it up...

Self-builders invariably prefer to spend £tens of thousands (or put no value on their own time, then spend months doing something badly and inefficiently for 'free') to avoid paying a couple of grand to a professional. And that doesn't just go for the plotfinding process, of course.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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Equus said:
garyhun said:
Equus, do you, or anyone you know, offer a quality plot finding/plot creation services?
Yes, it's a service we offer.

But you'd be surprised how few people are willing to take it up...

Self-builders invariably prefer to spend £tens of thousands (or put no value on their own time, then spend months doing something badly and inefficiently for 'free') to avoid paying a couple of grand to a professional. And that doesn't just go for the plotfinding process, of course.
Cheers! I should be in a position to take this further in the next few months so I'll ping you an email when I'm ready for my next project and we can have a chat about this.

joshcowin

6,775 posts

175 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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serviced plot? I know of one location in faversham, offering serviced plots.

TwistingMyMelon

6,385 posts

204 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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Ask around, word of mouth is key

When I needed commercial office space & land ,I gave our accountant a call , who is quite old school and did all the books for some rather large landowners, who also had contacts, two days later one of the biggest local farm owners gave me a call with all the properties and land he could sell, along with leads in the future. He also got some friends of his to ring me with similar chats. None of it was suitable but it got the ball rolling.

I also got some good offers for land and offices through asking on local groups in Facebook (dont laugh! one for the council thread). I had few offers of commercial space that was/would never be advertised as the owner did everything through word of mouth. I was suprised what came up tbh.

Speaking to those in building and plumbing trade have given me contacts that I never knew existed as well.

Above isnt for land to build a house, but whenever I see land for sale on the obvious Internet sites I always think it must be overpriced /crap/or another issue for it not to be gone already.

TBH I would also look at a professional service as listed above , more so if its a set fee with limited small print





Edited by TwistingMyMelon on Tuesday 16th October 16:39

Ricky146a

307 posts

75 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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As for auctions dealing with sites, try this national one
http://www.barnardmarcusauctions.co.uk/Current_Auc...

They have lots of sites for auction in various states (with PP, greenfield, potential PP etc).

I have bought 2 properties through them and it has been hassle free.
Last auction was yesterday but worth being on their mailing list for the next one (probably November).

DonkeyApple

54,923 posts

168 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
Equus said:
garyhun said:
Equus, do you, or anyone you know, offer a quality plot finding/plot creation services?
Yes, it's a service we offer.

But you'd be surprised how few people are willing to take it up...

Self-builders invariably prefer to spend £tens of thousands (or put no value on their own time, then spend months doing something badly and inefficiently for 'free') to avoid paying a couple of grand to a professional. And that doesn't just go for the plotfinding process, of course.
You’d think that self builders would be banging on the doors of developers as surely they’re the people who know where the plots are that are too small for them to develop or where the owners have an issue selling to corporate developers?

Equus

16,768 posts

100 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
You’d think that self builders would be banging on the doors of developers as surely they’re the people who know where the plots are that are too small for them to develop or where the owners have an issue selling to corporate developers?
Not necessarily. Developers don't waste their time and resources tracking the sorts of small and/or high Planning risk sites that are potentially of interest to self-builders.

And as a general rule, the bigger the developer, the more this is the case: big developers are usually split into 'regions', and each region needs to be continually fed with a never-ending supply of land, sufficient to build several hundred (if not thousand) homes per year. To do so, they need to concentrate on big sites, and the low-hanging fruit, in Planning terms... they simply can't afford to squander their resources chasing after, or even maintaining an awareness of, every tiny potential plot of land in their area.

The Land Agents who feed the developers might be a better bet, but refer, once again, to Rule 1. wink

DonkeyApple

54,923 posts

168 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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I was more thinking of local developers who are looking for small plots for 1 to a few homes rather than Barrett et al though.

Equus

16,768 posts

100 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
I was more thinking of local developers who are looking for small plots for 1 to a few homes rather than Barrett et al though.
In which case, they'll develop it themselves (bearing in mind that they can build both smaller and cheaper than almost any self-builder... so if it's too small or there's no profit in it for a small developer, it'll be too small or overpriced for a self-builder, too).

...and I've yet to meet a landowner who has a problem selling to a corporate developer, when they see the colour of the money. smile

You will occasionally persuade a small developer to carve out a plot on one of their developments for self-build, if they've bitten off more than they can chew with cashflow, or the development is selling slowly; and an increasing number of LPA's are bring in policies that demand serviced plots for self-builders as part of major sites, as a means of meeting the aforementioned obligation to deliver land for self-builds, but both will usually fall into the OP's classification of 'little bits of land in stty locations'.

JonChalk

6,469 posts

109 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
For that budget, what about buying a pile of crap in a good location and demolishing it to start again.

Less risky for PP (though not guaranteed) as a dwelling already existed.

Welshbeef

49,633 posts

197 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
quotequote all
JonChalk said:
For that budget, what about buying a pile of crap in a good location and demolishing it to start again.

Less risky for PP (though not guaranteed) as a dwelling already existed.
But where are these piles of crap in good areas priced low?