COLUMN: My wife and I are currently building what we hope will be our forever home
Do we go now? Or do we wait for prices to come down. It is like this; we would be waiting on macroeconomics.
My wife and I are currently building what we hope will be our forever home.
We contemplated buying a house and not doing a self-build - but in the end decided that the site we were fortunate enough to be gifted was just too nice to pass up.
So, nearly two years ago now, we began the process of building our home.
It started, for us, with an architect and about ten drafts of the house’s design and floor plan.
We knew exactly what we wanted, it just took the architect a while to cast aside his own views of what we should do and prepare the design for the house we wanted.
It has a traditional cottage-type beginning with a modern twist for an ending. Every architect now wants to give you a house made of glass; from floor to ceiling.
What happened to walls, and stone, and the old ways. Anyway, once the design is agreed, then comes planning. We got approval without any Further Information requests or hiccups, thankfully.
For us, during the planning process, there was a pandemic.
And then, during the search for builders’ quotes to construct the house, there was a war/invasion on the continent of Europe and major supply chain issues which have driven up the price of everything.
We thought our dream home had slipped away on us several times.
Whether it was exorbitant quotes or just fear that now was not the time to build with prices high and talk of a recession looming.
Even though I was in my late teens in 2007 and 2008, I remember the crash and I saw the ghost estates. I know the impact austerity and the recession had on people’s lives.
I was afraid it would happen to me and my family this time around. And the thing that keeps me awake most nights is that it still could and I’m still afraid. Taking out a mortgage; you feel so vulnerable.
The only difference at the moment is that mortgage lending is so strict.
We had to scrap and save hard for years to get mortgage approval and you only get a mortgage within your means, assuming you stay in full-time employment.
The problem that brings up is you may not get enough of a mortgage to build or buy your house and that is creating its own problems.
Anyway, we got our mortgage and eventually got a quote from a builder that was reasonable...but could change too if essentials like concrete, or insulation, or timber went up.
Then it was decision time. Do we go now? Or do we wait for prices to come down. It is like this; we would be waiting on macroeconomics.
It could take ten weeks or ten years for things to change and we weren’t going to put our lives on hold because of a pandemic or the whims of a dictator in Russia.
So, we broke ground at the beginning of June this year. We took the leap! It might seem crazy, but the real challenges were all yet to come.
The easy part was done, the building is the hard part...and we’re only three months in!
Part two next week