Instead they placed it with local agents Bradford & Bingley Gascoigne Pees who sold it within 10 days

Instead, they placed it with local agents Bradford & Bingley Gascoigne Pees who sold it within 10 days. Try telling some people who have sold a house within days that the commission paid to the estate agent has been hard earned “Money for old rope,” they argue. “How much better it would have been if we had sold it privately and saved ourselves thousands of pounds.” It all sounds so simple and – with the internet at our fingertips – it might seem the most obvious course for anyone with confidence and a half-decent property. Meanwhile the house that Roger builds has a 12-month deadline – “six months if all goes to plan”.

lists 6,000 UK self-build sites; .uk will seek out a surveyor, , run by the Royal Institute of British Architects, will find you an architect, or you can order a DIY barn from Potton Homes on . Lenders include the Brittania, Skipton and Newcastle building societies.So how long will the enterprise take? “If you are an experienced operator, it could take four months; if you are new to the industry it might take you a year or two. The worst-case scenario is that the project goes pear-shaped,” adds the Landbank Services spokesman. You can either borrow in stages or take out an accelerator mortgage, giving you up to 95 per cent of the cost of the land and house in advance. These cost from £41,300 to £57,000 (erection costs included) with all the basics from beams, doors and windows to skirtings and staircases. It is then up to you to find the bricks, tiles and other building materials – and a friendly local owl.More lenders are offering self-build loans. “The highest prices are in the Home Counties and the lowest in Wales and parts of Scotland,” says a spokesman for Landbank Services, the website’s owners.You could also build a house of straw – or more precisely, a barn with a thatched roof.

When demand forced up the price of the much-coveted rural barn, Potton Homes started selling build-your-own kits. This offers timber-framed packages and self-build schemes with project managers. Site-seekers, meanwhile, can pay £39.99 (renewable for free) and log on for three months, picking out plots offered by councils, churches, farmers, public companies and individuals in six-county batches. If the idea of a quarter-of-an-acre in Dyfed, Wales, appeals, it would set you back around £26,000 A similar-sized plot in Hampshire would cost about £110,000. The RICS spokesman adds: “You must ensure your planning permits are in place before you start, treat all costs like a control freak and get a specialist project manager to run it.”One way to start is to log on to .

“Any self-builder who already owns the land to be built on and lives in central or outer London can make very big profits when he puts the property on the market,” says a spokesman for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).So what does it take to be a self-builder? “The ideal candidate is someone who works in the building trade and has good links with contractors, surveyors and architects,” says Roger. And “location, location, location” is certainly key if you decide to sell the property you built from scratch. As for hotspots, Essex has attracted a big following as farmers sell off disused agricultural plots to enthusiastic DIYers. Most are detached houses and cost between £100,000 and £150,000 all-in. Then when Roger went to the office the next day, he drew up plans for a three-bedroom house to add on to the pretty little row in Twickenham, Middlesex.
“It was market insecurity that inspired me. My son had just been evicted from his home as the landlord wanted to sell the house, and it made me realise that renting can sometimes be unstable. I was doubly determined to find a safe place for my daughter and this seemed the ideal solution,” he says.