Dec 2004 Nationals and other areas not included in specific releases
Issued:-20th December 2004
Distribution to:- Nationals and other areas not included in specific releases.
Objective:- General announcement and background awareness of the clubs activities.
Exclusions: - if sent this release, not sent either of the other two, of the same date
Notes to editors and journalists. see notes for editors at end of release.
Response site for press and broadcasters to use is www.self-build.org.uk
Mail response for media enquiries
Club Services,
PO Box 887,
Cheltenham,
GL52 9WY
2 x 21p (second class) stamps suggested for enquiry pack by post
At this time of year many of us look at the year ahead and maybe set some new years resolutions, and some organisations do the same. Two working together has set themselves the challenge of making affordable homes available in most areas of the UK, at well under half the current prices in 2005.
The Self Build Homes Club that helps people to get a home of their own design, built for around a 40% discount, has set itself two resolutions for the year ahead; to help more people get affordable homes, and the second to develop a group to support people interested in having landmark homes developed. The first of these they feel will be easier to achieve than the second. They have also got together with others and set up a new non profit company called the Affordable Homes Project, with the objective of finding ways to get economy homes for people at under half price, quite a challenge you might think.
Bill Jennings one of the local consultants for the Self Build Homes Club explained, “ Now, over 1 in 8 new homes are self build, which these days don’t usually involve the person in any building graft, its all about making decisions and commissioning others, and this provides a saving of usually around 40%, compared to similar homes in the area. Most people don’t tend to go for a cheaper home, but spend as much as they would normally and get a larger or nicer home. Some others spend more on energy efficiency and look to spend the savings now on ways to cut the bills into the future. Some develop a series of homes over a few years and end up, after 3 or 4 moves, with a nice home and no mortgage outstanding, or just enjoy the large tax free extra income.” Explaining the new years resolution Bill explained, “We have set ourselves, as a new years resolution, the challenge of helping more people who perhaps cannot currently qualify for a mortgage, to take advantage of this, to get a home of their own in 2005. Many people tend to think of designer homes as expensive, but particularly where a club can get a group of people together, it can often provide a very cost effective way of getting a nice home. However most people who cannot qualify for a mortgage don’t understand about these options, or that 95% mortgages are available, paid out in stages to line up with the build requirements.”
The reason why so many people are unable to get a home is not the price as such, but the multiplier rules used by lenders, where many find their salaries are insufficient to qualify for a mortgage but quite acceptable to pay the rent on a property bought by an investor, where a condition of the investors ‘buy to let’ mortgage is that he has to set the rental at a minimum of 130% of the mortgage payments. Given this you can see that a home bought at a 40% discount has a mortgage payment of only around half of the rent for an identical home. To allow more people to be able to get mortgages, the trick has to be to get the prices down even further.
The new non profit organisation, the Affordable Homes Project, is developing information on different types of schemes to provide affordable homes, and this will all be available on its website shortly. In addition it will be working with the Self Build Homes Club and others to source land, suitable for developing affordable homes and discussing with developers, how it can help them with their need to create a quantity of affordable homes on some new developments, to qualify for planning consent. Bill explained “ there is land available that we think can be obtained at a discount, and some councils have shown an interest in releasing some land for low cost homes for people in the area. If we use this in combination with assembling groups of people, allowing bulk buying discounts and self build we are fairly sure we will be able to get new homes for well under half of the going rates now.” Another way that the Affordable Homes Project sees of reducing the cost even further is in stage developments, this is where the basics of the house is developed first and in a way that additional rooms in the roof, or elsewhere can be completed or added over time, garages added and other items left off the initial build to be added by the owner. Kitchens and bathrooms are good examples where the mortgage may cover a basic very cheap one, but through other funding, the homeowners could change it in the development process to have the finish they require, while still qualifying for the mortgage. This is something we are sure to see more about over the coming year.
When asked about the risk of property prices falling Bill said “its not a big problem for self builders, with a 40% discount a drop of a few percent would not present a problem to them, however the uncertainty is good, in that fewer developers are taking up plots for new developments and this is tending to make negotiating down the plot prices for members easier than it has been up to recently. Property will never drop much, and is far more likely to shoot up than drop back.” He went on to explain “Normally we get a few people who hear about the club and join, and then we go in and put on a few free presentations to get a group going.” What Bill suggests is that you take a look at their small ‘introduction to self build’ website to find out more, as this is easy to follow and then if you are interested you follow the link on, to their large and more complex site, to find out more. The introduction website is at www.self-build.org.uk.
The second harder resolution is connected with helping people to go for homes that are special and really stand out as local landmarks. This is likely to be harder as most area planners prefer new homes to be fairly uniform and merge in, while industrial and office units, they tend to accept as state of the art developments, that are noticeable. Bill explained “sometimes its just a case of including a tower or a large clock, while other times its creating a curved home or one split across levels that makes it special. So it does not have to be ultra modern or a replica of a bygone age, but something perhaps that people will remember when they have driven through and left the area. This project starts really by collecting concepts and stimulating thought. In most cases what people will actually choose to use from it will be watered down, but we do hope to also see a few full developments”.
The Self Build Homes Club website explains that they empower people to make decisions rather than make them for them, they help people to decide what it is they want, identify what it is that they need to find out, produce a specification with them of their dream and then help them in finding a plot and getting the development going. They provide members with work books, standard forms, letters and contracts, as well as a planning system to plan and monitor the build. They also have trade cards for members to make getting materials at full trade prices easier. While many self builders spend a long time looking for plots on their own, they have the difficulty of looking for solitary plots while the club can both look at using larger sites, with a number of plots and proactively goes looking for new sites. Bill explained, “at any time we know of over 14,000 sites with planning consent, and using local consultants to support the members and search out the ideal plots we have a great advantage over people trying to do it on their own. Club membership costs is recovered many times over, through better plot buying, and often surprisingly just in the petrol saved in not spending a long time looking yourself.”
The internet site gives access from a short introduction at www.self-build.org.uk through to their larger site with hundreds of pages, some the size of book chapters, but anyone who does not have internet access can get an explanation of the clubs activities and projects by post, by sending your name and address and 2 x 21p stamps to Club Services, PO Box 887, Cheltenham, GL52 9WY. Information on the Affordable Homes Project can be found by following the links from the clubs websites.
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Information for editor
The object of the Self Build Homes Club: The club was set up to empower people to build their own homes individually or as a part of a consortium or group project. All of the clubs income comes from membership fees it takes no commissions from anyone. It does not have an objective to create any profits in excess of maintaining its long term survival.
Further information: The Self Build Homes Club has a media centre within its website, providing a lot of information for journalists and broadcasters. This is available at www.self-build-homes-club.co.uk/media. There are 3 national large volume magazines for self builders in the UK, and within the media section you will find details of their rapidly growing circulations and statistics on cost savings they have published, as well as other statistics and studies of the number interested. There is also a section on misconceptions, for example the days of living in a caravan on a build site have long gone for most. Studies show that 80% of people would like a home built to their own design and all the reasons that they say are stopping them do not actually exist.
Another section contains questions and answers. As well as an introduction to the club and the way it achieves so much. The club also has a points programme that allows members who help the club to collect points and get large rewards, including top Nikon Digital SLR cameras and up to a £200,000 grant towards their home. This programme also allows people who do not want to pay to join the club to earn points in advance to cover the cost of their membership, or to join and use the points to recover fully their membership costs.
We will again this year, be running free presentations around the country explaining both self build and this year how to be able to get an affordable home. Part of our objectives is education, and presentations are about self build, and how it works not about selling club membership. We don’t press membership, as we want those who join to be committed and if they take part in a project to stay committed. More Information on these and more is on the media area of the website as well as some other promotion ideas.
The club operates internationally and also works closely with a number of other clubs, so can also help members to develop holiday homes at a discount as well.
Website capacity: The media are sometimes concerned as to the capability of websites to handle media response volumes. We do not have a problem with this. We have a small introduction site with only a few a pages, and no photos or graphics, this is supported by an array of servers, and has always been able to handle the volumes to date. If we have a problem the design allows us to add more server arrays in hours so we cannot have major problems over an extended time. The servers are in one of the largest centres in Europe. Most people’s initial interest will be covered by the small site, with a smaller number going on to the large site. This again is supported by an array of servers, and while the pages are far longer and more complex there are no photos and minimal graphics. To date we have been able to support large enquiry volumes. Like the smaller site we can very quickly, if the need arises, add in more collections of servers. While this architecture provides both members and the public with a very good service it unfortunately does not rank well in search engines, as the main web addresses are very small doorway sites, that after a splash screen send the users to other servers, and this does not get high search engine ratings.
Affordable Homes Project. This is a new UK non profit, company limited by guarantee, with costs sponsored by New Atlantis, a non profit UK company with the objective of improving the quality of peoples lives. It has no connection with religion or politics. New Atlantis has supported many new clubs and organisations through formation and was one of the founders on the Self Build Homes Club. Affordable Homes Project has a number of websites, and you can reach these as they come online from the links section of our media section. One site is up now with very basic data but within the next few weeks we have been told a larger site will have been put up.
Do you want to be kept informed by email, if so please send us an email to 'pr @ self-build-uk.org', (no space before or after the @) stating the publication, name of journalist, and email address and we will add you to our email distribution list. We don’t send out a lot, probably something every 6 weeks over a wide area, often including sets of fillers as well, that some find useful..
More information – please see the media website.
Affordable Homes Project is a non profit company, a company limited by guarantee.
Self Build Homes Club, helps people to develop their own homes at a considerable saving. It has no paid directors or staff, and income generation is designed to be sufficient to provide a stable future. All its income comes from membership fees, no introductory or other commissions are taken from anyone.