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The club
The club does not get commissions from any supplier, finance source, insurance company, property sellers, or any other person or company, its entire income comes from members.
Like any club it has to try to be as efficient as it can, be expandable to meet needs but able to also serve members as well if membership numbers were to fall back at some time in the future. Also irrelative of where you are located and the area the property you want to build is, you should get a quality, very personal service.
Lets take a quick look at how this club came about and how it works.
The idea to set it up came from a meeting between the Property Pension Club and New Atlantis and initial funding was provided by New Atlantis, a UK based non profit organization (company limited by guarantee) that has as its main objective, improving the quality of life of its members and others. The New Atlantis philosophy is an international one, and has benefits from a wide range of organizations and companies working together towards the same objectives. This club was set up by New Atlantis International Services Corporation, in cooperation with New Atlantis. Membership services and consultancy are provided through a number of companies that have been selected and commissioned by New Atlantis International Services Corporation. Subscription services for UK members are managed by Maximum Coverage Ltd, who have been providing similar services to non profit organizations for many years now.
The club itself is a company registered in the USA and while not defined as a non profit company, its objectives are all connected with helping members to achieve their dreams, and spreading information to others and not around generating profits. No directors or managers receive any salaries or profit share and any surpluses are donated to aid similar projects to improve the lives of others, as a part of the New Atlantis philosophy. It is not connected with any political or religious organization. Although an international organization this website and the services to members explained relates to members that are in the UK, and we make the international aspects transparent and has no disadvantage to members, in that you deal with a service company commissioned to look after the admin and subscriptions and are contacted by a consultant who likewise has been commissioned to look after you. The policy of using a commissioner and commissioned service providers is now common in many walks of life from hospitals and social services to larger companies and has a number of advantages, including lower running costs, less administrative waste and scalability to meet demand without excessive long term commitments.
Land search policies and similar are led in the UK by H3 Search Ltd, which will be particularly familiar to you if you are a member of the Property Pension Club or read its extensive website, as it is the premier consultancy company that club uses to provide its top services to its members. H3 Search Ltd has advanced measuring equipment, state of the art digital photography systems, access to aerial photographs of the whole of England as well as detailed mapping and other intelligence services, and works with local planners in areas we have members looking to self build. It also looks at property put forward by owners and agents as well as database services. Another UK company called Self Build Homes Club Ltd, has also been set up and commissioned to provide public relations, education and to protect the clubs name in the UK. It is not a part of the member services supply chain, and receives no commission or reward for members recruited.
By working with other clubs such as the Property Pension Club, Holiday Property Club and Property Club International, who all have a similar commissioning structure, the range of services is extended, and by these having slightly different arrangements, the geographic coverage and topics covered will be extended, this is particularly relevant to our UK members interested in buy to let, and acquiring overseas property. From June 2005 members will be able to transfer between clubs without paying an additional joining fee as their interests change, or one is better suited to helping them at that time. By having mutual arrangements to help each others members, we will not only be able to help you build your dream home, but also your holiday home and look at property for creating wealth and a pension.
All companies and organizations we work with have qualified for New Atlantis trust status, which demands a very high standard of customer/client care and policy as well as being completely trustworthy and reliable.
All new members are introduced by existing members, and a points scheme rewards well those members that become involved in spreading news about the club and introducing new members. This however cost the club only a fraction of what a retail marketing operation to sell club membership would cost, so leaves far more of the income for the provision of member services. Where we decide it is advantageous to recruit in a particular area, we will do this in co-operation with existing members, often supported by a commissioned educational programme or PR in the target area.
Membership confidentiality
All information we have is of course kept completely confidential, and although we will use information acquired to match people to projects we will not discuss other members in any respect. Projects are also confidential, and we ask all members to remember that others may be looking at competing with us for sites, so to keep all information we give them totally confidential.
Work books
The club provides where advantageous work books, and more are in development. These lead you through the questions to ask, and highlight the possible answers available to you in many cases. In effect work books are semi intelligent collections of information and linked forms, with a path that allows you, by answering questions, and making choices to define the types of property, build styles and more, as well as identifying the budget, means of funding and a whole range of other factors. These do not duplicate information within the tutorial section but provide a structured approach to your own research and decision making process. Work books take a number of different forms, from defining your needs, through appraising build sites to managing a build.
Work books although each complete in its own right are printed on a A4 hole punched paper, so that you can add them to a ring binder, documenting the decisions and experience you have gained. We are creating more work books as well as extending both the tutorials and articles sections. A page within the articles section explains more on the work books and future developments in this area. A large collections of standard agreements, letters and forms also simplify many tasks and make sure that all is as well defined, contracted and managed as it can be, as well as having defined systems for coping with changes you wish to make and rectify any problems that come to light.
Getting information on self build
We do not base membership recruitment on current or completed projects or other projects at all, as each members situation and area is likely to be different and situations likely to change over time. There are a wide range of sources of information on self build including both the articles and tutorial sections of this web site, our work books, the Property Pension Club's web site, a number of books have been produced that are of help to self builders and a number of monthly magazines exist that covers self build. At various points within the tutorial, articles and links sections you should find a large amount of information on very many of these.
First time buyers and affordable homes
Self build is often attractive to first time buyers as they can often get onto the housing ladder, as the cost of the project can be considerably lower than in a conventional house purchase. Within the articles section and elsewhere we have more information on funding your self build as well as the different types of projects and different sizes etc. If you don't think that you would be able to afford a home then click here.
We were also the inspiration for the foundation of 'The Affordable Homes Project', a separate UK non profit organization, company limited by guarantee, that works with us and others in an attempt to further reduce the cost of homes to those on lower incomes by sourcing lower cost plots, in a way that allows those involved to build now on leased plots with a fixed price option to purchase the freehold at a point when you can afford it. 2005 sees the introduction by us of a wider club project to find more ways of reducing costs of affordable homes, and together with 'The Affordable Homes Project' we expect to be able to show members how they can now do so at well under half of the price of a similar home in their area. On the panel on the left you will find a whole new website section devoted to affordable homes.
Trading up
Trading up is not a problem using self build, the days when people had to sell their home and live in a caravan for the periods of the build, are long gone, although some may still choose this route. Many funding sources now cover the funding for the build, so you can then sell your other house after the new build is complete, mortgaging the self built home, when equity is available. In recent years, as property has continued to rise in value during this process, they have had an unexpected windfall on the sale of their existing home on the completion of their new one. The size of this windfall has in some cases allowed them to completely refurnish their new home, with all new furniture and add a new car or pool as well, others have used it to set about a self build holiday home, or to get into 'buy to let'. In some cases in the future however time may become more critical, and the speed the project is run at therefore more important. It is possible to build a house now very fast when the need arises, and a good management system is then necessary in order to complete it in very fast time. Funding sources also are now far more helpful than in previous times with many making funds available in stages to match when payments are required to be made.
Buy to let
For the buy to let investor or person building a pension fund through property, self build is attractive, as immediate equity is apparent as soon as the property is built, and rental income compared with cost is higher. Remortgaging at a sooner point than by other means is also possible, throwing up more cash to allow further deposits and either more self build or conventional purchases to be funded, allowing a property empire or pension fund to be created fast. In a period when property prices do not rise as rapidly this also allows your property investment growth to continue. In the articles section you will find a more detailed look at buy to let in relation to self build.
Want to be a property developer.
If you use self build as a way to either generate income or to move over a number of developments to mortgage free living, self build will allow you to achieve this quicker. We would suggest that you do move into each home if only for a very short period, so as to not pay tax on the considerable gains and for other reasons connected with maximizing return. It is likely you can organize funding so as to be able to do this completely without using any of your own capital. We are also always keen to talk to developers and others about joint projects, perhaps where a site is shared and roads and services put in by a joint venture developer for the whole site.
Land to sell or looking to be both a self builder and land provider.
We have a separate page on this web site that covers this in detail. Click here to read it now.
Suppliers looking to market through us.
We do not take commissions from anyone, our total income comes from members. This does not mean that you cannot market through us, it just means that instead of paying us a commission and giving members small discount, you can offer our members a larger discount. The club provides members with a trade card, to allow them to obtain materials and supplies at trade prices. From time to time we also tell members of other offers, offered to holders of the clubs trade card. See the page on trade cards if you feel you may have something to offer members.
Our points programme
The points programme allows those members who wish, to become involved in promoting the club and be generously rewarded for this. It is not for most who will be far more interested in getting on with their development, but some may have the time, or interest in this, rewards can vary from free subscriptions to the club for a year or 24 bottles of top quality wine right up to a £200,000 non repayable grant towards building your own home. This is explained more on the points programme page.
Membership rules and conditions
The club has tried to make its rules not only reasonable and fair to all, but easy to understand written in plain English. Full details of the membership conditions are available by clicking here, you can also get to them by a link on the how to join page
Our web sites
This web site is in a number of sections, you can switch between sections from selections on the left. We also have a number of other web sites for specific uses.
Main club web sites of interest to UK members are:-
Click here to see how to contacting us
This is the 5th of 6 pages which explains the club, click here to go to the next page in the sequence which has details of how to join, subscription rates and methods.
This website should show a Self Build Homes Club title at the top and content bar down the left. If you have reached this page by some means that has not displayed it properly, for example from a search engine, please click here to load the website properly and show the UK home page and options. If this does not work click here to get to a site map.
Form-mail - a general purpose form, questions, feedback, and other contacts. It is quick to complete and covers most requirements. Pops up in a new window, close the window after use, to get back here.
Self Build Homes Club is an international club
and trading title of Self
Build Homes Club llc. Local services
to serve members are commissioned for the club by New
Atlantis International Services Corporation.
All major commissioned companies involved, have New Atlantis trust status.