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Building your first home

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  • 05-08-2016 12:23am
    #1
    HOBO123
    Registered Users Posts: 60 ✭✭


    Just a quick question really about whether my expectations are unrealistic. Im a school teacher and my boyfriend is a tradesman. Neither of us make a huge amount of money but we want to start saving for a home. We would ideally love to build our first home but is that expectation realistic in today's climate? We are only looking to build a small bungalow but Im led to believe that even that might be beyond our grasp? Between us we take in roughly 50,000 a year. Do we need to reign in our dreams and focus on a cheaper pre-built prospect?


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    #2
    Gumbo
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 39,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭Gumbo


    HOBO123 wrote: »
    Just a quick question really about whether my expectations are unrealistic. Im a school teacher and my boyfriend is a tradesman. Neither of us make a huge amount of money but we want to start saving for a home. We would ideally love to build our first home but is that expectation realistic in today's climate? We are only looking to build a small bungalow but Im led to believe that even that might be beyond our grasp? Between us we take in roughly 50,000 a year. Do we need to reign in our dreams and focus on a cheaper pre-built prospect?

    Depends on how much you can save, how big you want to build, where you want to build and how much the site etc costs.

    See what the banks will lend you on their mortgage calculators then see if that. Us get can build the Ho e that you want.


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    #3
    mike_2009
    Registered Users Posts: 533 ✭✭✭mike_2009


    Hi,

    It is possible so don't loose hope! Location is the first factor, you want to find land for sale out of Dublin firstly, and with local needs planning permission being the next hurdle, see if you can build near where you work - the school as that is a key argument in convincing planners of your requirement / need to live and build in the locality. Or near where you family or your partners are located.

    The house itself is another matter, there was an irish architect who built his own for 25K over 2 years (google it) but doing it any other way can involve Architect fees and other professionals which drives up cost fast. There is a Galway firm that import scandanavian homes, you decide the size and they erect it and you can do your own planning application etc so it can be more cost effective, keeps costs more predictable. Shop around and see what budget you are looking at for a mortgage and if you're willing to do some of the work yourselves then it all helps in the end.

    3.5 times 50K gives you a max mortgage of 175 perhaps so maybe save, buy the site, save more and go for the mortgage on the build cost only? Unless someone can "gift" you a site? It's harder to save if you're renting so unless you move in with inlaws/parents perhaps talk to your local credit union and see if they can help with the land side of things? 25-50K there I'd imagine....

    Good Luck!


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