A Bucket List Dream or a Planning Nightmare? Building Your Own Home

Believe it or not, you don’t need a Lego set to build your own home. Maybe a self-build is something that you’ve always dreamed of but never thought was possible (without winning the lottery). Maybe it’s on the bucket list and is a life goal that you’re working towards. Either way, there’s a lot of pros and cons that need to be considered before you put that first brick on the ground.

Building your own home- the pro’s

We’ll start with the most obvious one, personal satisfaction. If you’ve ever drawn a picture or completed a jigsaw puzzle, then you’ll understand the personal satisfaction that comes with facing a blank canvas and bringing something beautiful to life. Now imagine that feeling amplified by 10. Creating something that you and your future generations can live in will bring a feeling of accomplishment beyond words. It’s the feeling of a lifetime.

Other, less obvious benefits include:

• Something that you create yourself has a higher personal value
• Your new home can be sold for a substantial profit if it’s bought and built correctly
• You can design your dream home without being limited to options
• It can be a life-changing experience

Let’s face it, we all have a forever home in our heads. The issue is waiting for that forever home to come on the market and to come on at a price that we can afford. It very rarely does though, because our forever home isn’t designed by an architect, it’s designed by our imagination. Trying to buy something that matches that exact image can be close to impossible.

However, building a home means that you can design it the way your heart desires. Whether it’s a two-storey, three-bed house or a luxury mansion with plenty of land and a downstairs swimming pool, the options are endless.

Building your own home- the cons:

Okay, building your own house might have a list of benefits that seems endless. But that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It’s going to take more than bricks, mortar, and a good builder to create your forever home. It’s going to take time, upfront capital, and a lot of willpower.

Some of the cons of building your own home are:

• Things can go wrong (and they can be costly)
• It can take years to build
• It’s harder and riskier to finance. You’ll need more upfront capital
• Finding the right land is hard
• You might need to understand and go through Planning Permission

Although building your own home allows you to design it into your life-long dream, you still have to find a plot of land that is going to be suitable for it. For example, you can’t build a six-bed mansion in a street surrounded by two-bed terraces. The plot wouldn’t be big enough and you’d certainly struggle to get planning. The right land can be hard to find, expensive and not always offer you the options that you need. So, self-building isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. But it can be worth it. Whether or not it is is something that only you can decide.

If you’re interested in learning a little more about planning regulations and the new changes that are being made to them, you can read our article here[SC1] . Alternately, if you’re interested in finding land to build your forever home, contact us on the information at the bottom of this article.

To build a house, you must first lay the foundations:

And that involves finding land that’s suitable for development. If you need a hand finding commercial space, then just contact us on the details below. Alternately, if you need to sell your current home to make way for your new build, send us an email to book your free, no obligation valuation at markn@compassresidential.co.uk