How To Self Build During A Recession - My Experience Of Building A Large Family Home

Hey there - thanks for visiting my blog! My name is Parmdeep Vadesha and I am a full time property investor based in Leicester.

Writing and helping others is a passion of mine so make sure you check up on me often as I am going to be adding lots of helpful information for fellow self builders.

In this blog I will be documenting my self build of a large luxury home set in 1.55 acres in the Leicestershire countryside right from the very beginning up until I move in.

I will be including lots of pictures, videos, audio interviews and diary comments to help you learn how you can do something similar for yourself.

This post contains my diary comments from May 2007 which is when this deal really started to come together although I have had my eye on this plot for around 3 years.

Ever since I started in the property business I've dreamt about finding a nice plot of land and building a nice house for myself and my family - I'm sure many of us have!

For a few years I would do what most people do... Have a look on rightmove.co.uk when I had nothing better to do, randomly drive around on a Sunday afternoon and keep an eye on the paper for plots.

I soon discovered oven ready plots (those with planning permission granted) in my area are very few and far between. Those that came to market always sold for ridiculous prices which confirmed my suspicion - the high end of our local property market is holding up very well.

At the time I was around 3 out of 10 on the ‘seriousness' scale in terms of finding a plot so I must admit I wasn't that committed. I was more interested in looking for investment properties but I continued to pursue the dream in my spare time.

The very first promising plot I came across turned out to be the one I ended up buying...

I found it by simply driving up and down the village roads about a mile from where I live now. One of the large main roads turned into a countryside lane that ended at a farm a mile up the road. On the way there you pass maybe four houses and that's it.

So I'm driving down the road and about half way down on my left I spot this large derelict house. Then I notice the view - stunning is the only word I can think of to describe it. Just absolutely stunning. Here are some images of the current derelict property on the plot, the views and frontage of the plot.

"Hmm, this looks interesting" I think to myself. I drive past the plot turn the car around and back again for another look. I drove straight home and logged on to the land registry website to find out more about the owner. Turns out the land is unregistered so I cannot easily find out who the owner is, when he bought it and whether there are any charges on the property.

I decide to pay the seller a visit.

So off I go back to the plot. As I walk towards the door there is a huge German Shepherd dog chained to a kennel just next to the front door. I had one of these myself at the time so I had some idea of whether it was trying to genuinely attack me or just telling me to get off it's territory. I figured the latter and knocked on the window.

After a few knocks a man emerges and asks me what I want. I apologise for disturbing him and introduce myself. I explain that I live locally and I am looking for a home for me and my wife.

He just stood there listening and watching my body language (it turns out he's ex Army so he's probably trained in that type of thing - who knows). Anyway I get to the point and ask him if he'd ever considered selling his property.

By the look on his face it was clear a number of people had already come round to ask the same question.

He said he might at the right price. I then asked him to show me round the plot which he did and we continued chatting away. I did this to take our attention off the sale of the property and on to something else. After I'd looked round I asked for his mobile phone number and I said I'd ring him back with an offer.

I figured the plot would be worth £500k-£600k with planning permission on the open market so I called and offered him £350k. He said he'd consider it and get back to me which he never did. I called him a few times after that to get something going but he just wasn't motivated enough to sell so I left him to it.

I then sent my dad round a few months later to have a chat and he got the same response. I persisted a few more times and managed to get the figure he had in mind - £800k!

That's when I decided to leave that deal alone.

I continued looking for plots but I'd always get beaten to the finishing line by developers who happily paid over the odds for prime properties that could be knocked down and rebuilt. We also have a lot of wealthy textile business families here in Leicester who have plenty of cash behind them to snap up properties in prime areas.

I went for a couple of ‘sealed bid' deals where we submitted our best and final offers before a deadline. All offers are opened at the same time on the same day and the seller would usually take the highest offer.

No joy.

Then I got married in June 2006. This changed the situation because I now had my future family to think about. So I got serious.

I laid out a plan.

1. First try direct mailing all the estate agents in Leicestershire with a letter detailing my requirements and see what that brings up. I'm particularly looking for those agents who are aware of ‘off market' plots or properties.

2. If that didn't work out, get a list of all the homeowners within my areas of interest and send them all postcards. The postcard would detail my requirements and make it clear that if they knew of any good properties or plots then I would be very happy to pay a generous finders fee if I purchased the property. I figured this tactic would work best because there are a lot of ‘hidden' property opportunities you just don't see if you are driving around unless you drive into every single nook and cranny off every street which just isn't practical. The second benefit is that these people would know who is in a position to sell and who is not - this is a luxury I do not have.

The letter to the estate agents generated an excellent response so I decided to put off mailing the local homeowners. I ended up with three good agents who then sent me several off market plots and an ex estate agent turned property finder who offered to find me something suitable.

I made offers on two of the properties brought to my attention by the agents but they didn't come to fruition. The first one because a knock down rebuild just wasn't feasible. In other words the new house would be worth less than my outlay and on the other one I was pipped to the post by another developer.

That one had planning permission for a knock down of the existing building and three replacement dwellings. I wanted to knock down the existing property and rebuild one in its place. Therefore, developers in this situation would pay more than someone like me because they can still profit handsomely after the three homes have been developed and sold.

The ex estate agent turned property finder turned out to be a clever guy. His name is Paul Humphreys and I'll be mentioning him throughout my diary... to be continued...

Feel free to leave me comments (click the ‘post a comment' link underneath) - I'd love to hear your opinions!

Thanks for reading my blog

Parmdeep Vadesha