Establishing a realistic budget at an early stage is one of the keys to successfully building your own home. There are a number of factors such as location, size, level of quality and build route that ultimately determine what a particular dwelling will cost to build. Homebuilding & Renovating magazine in conjunction with the RICS produce a table of average guideline build costs (see below), which is a useful starting point for calculating a sensible budget.

Open the table on a larger separate window

The table shown above is taken from the April 2009 edition of the magazine. As you can see the table is logical and very easy to use however H&R stress that the figures are an average and intended as a guideline therefore should only be used to establish a preliminary budget. Clearly each project is unique and if you would like to discuss your own specific project and the likely associated costs then please contact us on 0845 40 40 400 and we can put you in touch with one of our local consultants.

Michael Homes, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine has written an article entitled 'How much will your project cost? It provides an interesting, practical and in-depth look at the factors that influence build costs - it's a must read for aspiring self-builders. Click here for link.

Example build cost calculation
To demonstrate how to use the table we have shown below a worked example. The house illustrated was recently built by clients of ours and has a floor area of 225 square metres. For the purpose of this example we are locating the plot in the Midlands with the house built to a 'good' standard and using build route 'C' (shell build and subcontractors) but you can apply your own criteria. You will see we have also allowed for some popular cost Adjustments and typical Additional Costs (this page should be read in conjunction with the section entitled Build in Expectation click here for link).

We would again stress that these figures are an average and intended as a guideline only. We would suggest you contact us on 0845 40 40 400 if you wish to discuss build costs for a specific project.