Doing it Yourself: a Look at Self-Build
Self-build is a phrase that is getting ever-popular in the housing market. Wait up a minute, what exactly is “self-build”? It’s a property you build yourself. It doesn’t have to mean LITERALLY by yourself, but you put yourself in the position as planner, foreman, architect of your home and allow skilled workers do the job you tell them to do. “Self-build” is pretty much recession-proof due to the relatively low costs involved (relative to buying a home) – in fact, the army of “self-builders” in the UK outnumbers the amount of properties being developed by any professional developer. The purpose of self-build is to make a house to your exact specifications, not a boiler-plate design that commercial developers use.
I know what you’re thinking: “I haven’t a clue about how to build a house”. The pleasant news is that self-build doesn’t have to involve you with the physical aspects of the home development (in fact, only around 5% of self-builders actually take a role in the actual building of the property). Even the design aspects are often finalised by a professional designer. Self-build, more often than not, is about you articulating (in plain English), what you require to the property designer – who then creates a plan based on your requirements. This design then becomes the blueprint the builders work to. Easy, eh? You don’t need to have any proactive involvement in self-build. Having said all that, the DIY fan can use self-build as a chance to save some dosh by contributing toward the tasks of self-build they have experience in – it’s your shout as to how much involvement you want during the build.
Self-build sounds pricy, but in reality it’s more often than not cheaper than buying an already developed home of identical specifications (roughly a third cheaper). That’s not all, self-built houses fetch a good price too – up to 25% higher than the actual build cost, so you can view self-build also as a means to invest your money, rather than just a home to live in
You must make sure the team of workers you select are 100% competent and that they build well together. For sure, you will need builders with experience of some rather potentially dangerous machinery used in construction, such as concrete cutting chainsaws, block and slab splitters, power / disc cutters, floor saws, and wood saws. Skills bring safety to the project too.
This article is just an introduction to the concept of constructing a home by yourself, and I hope it will inspire those of you who are perhaps a little scared by such projects. It needn’t be time-intensive, and you won’t need house building / designing skills, but hire carefully, and you will need to cautiously work out the overall cost of the project.
