Building your own home can be an expensive dream, especially if you want to go large or buy land in an expensive area. However, you can still cut the cost of building your own home without having to cut corners or make too many compromises. Read on to find out how it’s done.

Do Some Research

There is no point in going after land that a lot of other people or companies are competing for. The more popular a plot of land is, the more it will push the prices up and you are unlikely to have the same spending power as any of the large house building companies. Instead, do your research and study the type of land that is likely to be popular and what isn’t.

If the land is not popular it is likely to be cheaper, but you should ask yourself why others don’t want it. This might be because the land is not good for building, in which case you shouldn’t want it either.

It may be that the land isn’t big enough or the environment won’t sustain a lot of house building, which makes it unprofitable for larger companies. However, it could be the perfect piece of land for sale for an individual property. Do your research properly by reading Arbtech’s guide on how to find land for sale. They are an experienced ecology consultancy firm that knows everything there is to know about arboricultural and ecological issues.

Negotiate

If you have fantastic negotiation skills, you could save yourself a lot of money. You should start negotiating from the beginning and get yourself the best price you can on the land you want to buy.

You can negotiate with the builders to get their quotation down in exchange for sourcing the material yourself. Don’t forget if you need a lot of one thing, such as bricks, you have better buying power and more ability to negotiate a competitive price.

Don’t try to bring the cost of building labour down too much as this will mean that your builders are unmotivated and might be trying to work for several clients at the same time to make ends meet. This will cause frustration on your part, so it is best to pay for the labour you want.

Get Your Hands Dirty

One way of reducing the cost of labour is to do a lot of the work yourself. Building doesn’t need to be a perplexing task if you have an interest in DIY as you can watch videos and tutorials to show you how to do the easier stuff and save yourself money that way.

Be wary of completing complicated jobs and steer away from electrics or plumbing unless you know exactly what you are doing. These tasks can be expensive or even life-threatening if you haven’t been trained.

One fantastic way of cutting costs is to design your house yourself. That can often be one of the most exciting parts of the house building process as you can create your dream home and make sure that it works perfectly for you. This means that you don’t need to hire an architect to design your home from start to finish and you can save yourself a small fortune. However, it would be worth getting a draughtsman to look over your design to make sure that it will work as well in practise as it does on paper.

Do Your Own Conveyancing

You do not have to use a solicitor or a conveyancer to help you buy land as you can do this work yourself. You will need to make sure that you do all the searches you need to and apply for planning permission. You will need to comply with building regulations and negotiate with your sellers’ solicitors. Once your sale is complete you will need to register the change of ownership with the land registry.

Be prepared for some hard work if you want to complete the conveyancing yourself. You will need to do a lot of research to make sure you get everything right as any mistakes could put you in breach of building or local authority regulations and the worst-case scenario could be that you are ordered to pull the house down. This is an extreme example though and if you are happy to do some research and save yourself some costs, this could be a great way to accomplish that.

Live Basically

You will need to live somewhere while the work is being carried out and the more basic your living conditions are or the more favours you can call in from friends and family the better.

If you need to sell your existing property to buy a new one, then you could live with friends and family for a few months if they don’t mind. This can cause stress, however, so it might be best not to do this for longer than you have to. Once part of your new home is habitable you could decide to move in.

If you don’t need to sell an existing property to start your self-build project, then you might find yourself paying extra bills and a larger mortgage if you keep your own home while you are building a new one and this can be difficult. This is especially so towards the end of the project when there will be a mortgage and bills to pay on both properties. However, this can be a good option if you intend to sell your self-build house as soon as it is built.

Either way, it is best to try to make cutbacks in your household budget while you are building your new home and you should plan your outgoings to see how this is best achieved.

Use these five tips to help you to cut costs while you are building your own home without having to change your dream home too much. It is worth a little short-term pain for a great long-term gain.