House build price's, outlandish!

Diagro

Diagro

Diagro

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Joined
3 Jun 2012
Posts
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Anyone had any experience with getting prices from contractors for a start to finish house build?

We are looking to build a 182m2 challet bungalow with 4 bedrooms.

Prices between £480k and £650k to build it!

Considering the value of the house will be less than the total cost inc land cost... its MADNESS.

What's going on!?
 
Planning regulations? Inflation of material costs and labour through skill shortages? Lack of east European labour post Brexit?

If you are finding that all conventional house builders are too expensive, how about investigating alternatives such as pre fab construction, containers, timber, inflatables etc.
 
Diagro said:
Anyone had any experience with getting prices from contractors for a start to finish house build?

We are looking to build a 182m2 challet bungalow with 4 bedrooms.

Prices between £480k and £650k to build it!

Considering the value of the house will be less than the total cost inc land cost... its MADNESS.

What's going on!?
Click to expand...
Are you getting quotes from a company to do everything? Might be more cost effective to project manage it yourself, price up the groundworks, footings, concrete, materials, bricklayers, etc separately.
 
Mr Badger said:
Planning regulations? Inflation of material costs and labour through skill shortages? Lack of east European labour post Brexit?

If you are finding that all conventional house builders are too expensive, how about investigating alternatives such as pre fab construction, containers, timber, inflatables etc.
Click to expand...
I'd need to get fresh planning permission to do that. That's been a battle I don't wish to repeat.
 
Teknobry said:
Are you getting quotes from a company to do everything? Might be more cost effective to project manage it yourself, price up the groundworks, footings, concrete, materials, bricklayers, etc separately.
Click to expand...
Looks like this will be the route we end up taking.
 
Diagro said:
Looks like this will be the route we end up taking.
Click to expand...
Using a company to protect manage is just adding a middle man that you'll need to pay but will also add money on to the quote every trade they'll use gives.

Definitely more work for you, you'll need to plan very carefully but the cost savings should be significant.
 
Sounds like about 2.5k to 3k per square metre, (got to consider VAT too which you can recover with a true new build?

doesn't sound too outlandish. What were you expecting?
 
Diagro said:
Anyone had any experience with getting prices from contractors for a start to finish house build?

We are looking to build a 182m2 challet bungalow with 4 bedrooms.

Prices between £480k and £650k to build it!

Considering the value of the house will be less than the total cost inc land cost... its MADNESS.

What's going on!?
Click to expand...

Full builds like this are only viable if you're doing a proportion of it yourself, unless you're building something massive.
 
Turnkey is always very expensive, our 2 extensions would have been double (from the quotes we had).

At least split it in to a basic plastered 'shell' (so groundworks, foundations, brick/block structure, roof, windows, doors) (you can forgo windows/doors and manage that yourself if something beyond basic uPVC or aluminium from a local company, then project manage the interior, flooring, kitchen, bathrooms etc..

However, £1.5k per m2 is going to be a fairly standard fit/finish etc, so £300k for that.. if you want super nice windows and bespoke kitchen, lovely flooring, designer rads, then get your cheque book out.

You can save a fortune on the kitchen/utility by buying units from places like DIY Kitchens and getting a local fitter/carpenter.. including appliances we did a better than Wren/Howdens kitchen with solid worktops for £12k less than any single source quote we had!
 
It does sound hefty, but as mentioned i don't think that's too outlandish. If you consider 2k/m2 as being fairly average although given how much prices have risen recently i'm unsure if it might even be more than that.

Then factor in ~15k for a kitchen which is probably reasonable at a house that size, and then maybe 15k for 3 bathrooms and then work for groundworks, driveway, garden etc and the lower end of your scale seems pretty reasonable.

I think it's pretty standard that an approach of going custom like this would end up being more expensive than buying a property, but that's the price you pay for getting exactly what you want. We're in a similar situation over here, spent 3 months looking for resale houses and then decided to build. Will likely end up being a fair bit more than the cost of buying, even buying a new build from a local developer, but it's what we want to do.
 
Also remember that unless you get a fixed price for the job (and most firms wont do them now due to the volatile nature of prices for material) that a quote is only an estimate
and the actual price will probably be more than you expect.
Ours went up by 50k from estimate with no significant changes
 
Its so expensive because that is the most expensive way to build a house.

The cheapest being paying your builder mate down the pub by the hour to do the lot for you and you laboring from morning to night.
Which is basically what I did ten years ago.
 
Haven't you ever seen Grand Designs?

No way I'd ever build my own house.

Whatever you think it'll cost or how long you'll think it'll take, double it, at least.

If you are married expect to be divorced by the end.
 
@sovietspybob built his own i recall. Might be able to add some input.

Personally i wouldn't try and manage it yourself unless you have experience. Yes you'd pay a premium, but i'd rather have a single contact i could take complaints to given the size of the project than trying to save 20k or so.
 
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