Mayflower Mortgage: Hello and welcome back to the Self Builders podcast by Mayflower Mortgages. And today we've got a slightly different conversation where we're looking at custom build in a little bit more detail and a real life example from Helen and David, who went down the custom build route rather than the sort of traditional self-build one. Before we get into the conversation, I think it's probably worth just explaining the difference between sort of self-build and custom build as they're often used interchangeably. ⁓ in the market, but they're not, they're not quite the same. So self-build is typically where you're sort of responsible for the entire process. So you would source the land, manage the build, point contractors, and essentially drive the project from start to finish. Sort of yourselves custom build on the other hand, usually involves a developer or a scheme that provides the plot and a more sort of structured framework. So still in the realm of self-build still funded the same way with your stage releases, but, you get a little bit of influence over the design. but it's a little bit tighter in terms of layout and the specifications. So simple terms, get the home designed around you, but with a bit more sort of support from the developer who has got a set sort of plan and how they're looking to build it. So getting into it, welcome Helen and David. It's really nice to have you on and yeah, could you give us a quick sort of introduction on yourselves and what your project was please?

Helen & David: Yeah, well, we're Helen and David. We've been married for coming up 20 years. We had lived in Reading in a house, a beautiful 1920s house for over, what was it, 15, 15 years. And we decided we wanted to move to Henley-on-Thames. And that's the start of the story, really. It was when the house search started. and we came across this place and I'll let David tell the story of how we found the plot because it's an interesting one. So originally we were going to go for just a straight house purchase, a built house, normal mortgage if we needed it. The plan was to downsize, that didn't quite come off. I went to see a house which is next door And in the grounds of the house, well the grounds, sounds very grand, but in the garden of the house that I went to see, the developer had purchased the house that I went to see, but also the garden as well. So the developer's plan was to build a house which he had started in the garden of the house that we went to see. And we struck up a conversation with the developer and said to the developer, you know, what's the deal? Could we... acquire the house. Normally he brought them to the market when he built them, but we entered with him under an agreement at that point to kind of do an off plan arrangement. know, that he fortunately, he let us rent the house that he bought. So we, we sold our house in Reading, rented the house that's actually next door here.

Mayflower Mortgage: Amazing.

Helen & David: during the build project and then everything started in earnest then.

Mayflower Mortgage: So it wasn't a plan to do a self build from the start. That wasn't on the cards. was normal sort of hammering right move, normal house search and sort of fell into this, this sort of world.

Helen & David: Right. Probably if we'd have been pushed, we would have liked a new house to purchase.

Mayflower Mortgage: sort of this traditional large house build, the national house build of that sort of process. ⁓

Helen & David: Yeah, or actually the attraction of this guy, local builder, was that he built about 10 houses around the Henley area and they were all attractive houses, well-specced. So if we got our timing right, we would have liked to sort of intercept him at the point he finished a project and then buy it then. So ⁓ it was just, I guess, the timing that meant that we ended up doing a self-build.

Mayflower Mortgage: I'll go with you.

Helen & David: And I would add that we had done an extension on our old house. It needed a big kitchen extension. so we had done a project before and we thought maybe, particularly the house next door, that we would be doing another project. And honestly, I would say neither of us ever thought we'd be doing a self-build. ⁓ Yeah, it was just, it was all new to us, but it's just the way it unfolded really.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, it shows different ways you can come into the sort of self-healing space. It doesn't have to be, you've got a spade in your hand, you dig out the foundations and do it that way. There are so many ways to come into it. So when, when you've got the plot secured, how much sort of flexibility do you have on the design? Do you choose from pre-approved designs or do you sort of start from scratch with the, with the builder?

Helen & David: So one of the conversations that we had with him before we agreed a deal was he was very clear that the house he was going to build was the house we were going to have. So the dimensions, the structure of rooms, and he gave us basically a specification of what he was going to produce, which was about a 10, 15 page document. What he then said was, I'm going to show you the areas that you can vary. And they were, there were some entries to rooms that could be changed. instead of coming in from this side, we could come in from that side. Flooring, wall coverings. Bathrooms. Bathrooms. The upstairs layout we could change slightly. Yeah. But he's very, he's known for his modern Victorian designs. So he's very proud and they are beautiful and they get commented on all the time. His detail. So as David said, it was very much, here's the design that's got planning permission, but we can flex around it. And we quite like that, particularly living next door because it meant we could pop in and make decisions quickly.

Mayflower Mortgage: How involved were you day to day? you, was it a day to day basis or was it more just, yeah, and visiting the site next door helpful?

Helen & David: Yeah, pretty involved. We probably, yeah, in a week, we'd probably come into the site three or four times, you know, partly for just for kind of update and progress. But there were situations when it required us to be on, you know, be there and sign things off. What we did as part of the contract that we struck with him, was we ⁓ bought the land when we exchanged on our house purchase. So we paid him an amount for the land and then we entered into what was called a JCT contract. So it's a kind of format, standard building contract format. And both of us agreed that we would employ an independent surveyor. who would be available to us and would get involved at the point of each stage sign off to agree that, you know, what had been agreed on the stage had been done. that was something we shared the cost on that. So he paid half, we paid half. And he was really actually pretty valuable because... If there had been any disagreement on, you know, this stage isn't finished, then he would have been the arbiter for that.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, you get a little bit more control and a little bit more sort of involvement than if you just bought off a large national house builder as well. So what change did you make in the end? Did you make any major changes or again, more to the layout rather than structural, but.

Helen & David: Yeah. We, yeah, I think one of my favorite memories is because it's a three story house, it was double, well, probably triple height ladders when it was being built to get on the top floor. And we had a knock next door and it was come around, we think we want to switch where your master bedroom will be. And so I couldn't face going up the double ladder. David went up the double ladder because the view at the back of our house is over the valley. and it's beautiful, whereas the master bedroom was going to be at the front. So they got David up the ladder to say, do you agree we're going to switch the layout of the first floor and have the master at the back? And whilst it meant we missed out on the beautiful big bay window for the master, we both agree it was the right decision. ⁓ that's one of my favorite memories of when we were called upon to make a decision. And often the decisions had to be made quickly. We didn't give us a lot of runway to make decisions. It was like, right, we're doing bathrooms tomorrow. Right, we're doing tiles tomorrow. It was always very, very quick, but we like that. We are much better when we've got to make, yeah, no bad thing. Yeah, the way we managed. So if I take flooring, for example, he put in the specification, you can choose whatever flooring you want. And I'll give you 60 pounds per square meter as a kind of budget for flooring.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, it's not a bad thing. Yeah.

Helen & David: We then, both of us went to a tile flooring shop and we said we'd like that and left him to negotiate a price with the supplier. And I think we only overpaid or went past the budget in one of the bathrooms where we decided to have a kind of very large... Wow. Wow kind of, you know. bookmarked, matched, big tile thing. So the rest of the time we sort of went within budget and to be honest, it's been fine.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, it all looks amazing. For the funding with the project then, so it's all like in terms of the finance, obviously it differs to a traditional mortgage where it is just get your money, lump sum and away you go. How did you sort of find that side of it sort of slightly different to what you're used to?

Helen & David: Go. Yeah. Well, so we had 75 % of the money in cash from the sale of our previous house. So the Mayflower bit came in when we'd gone, I think it was stage five. And what happened with that then was instead of going to the bank to get the cash to pay to the builder, what we got, what we needed to do was get in touch with Mayflower. who put us then into touch with Saffron Building Society and Saffron then had to okay the stage release. Saffron sent out ⁓ another surveyor, unfortunately we had to pay for him as well, they sent out another surveyor to basically assess that the money that they were releasing was, you know, there was value in the house should the problem project had not been finished and those happened so we got all the money from SAFROM to complete the project and you know everything's been pretty good we're just in the process now switching from the SAFROM self-build mortgage into a proper homeowners mortgage.

Mayflower Mortgage: to a traditional mortgage. And how long does the project take, so start to finish from the initial conversation with the builder to completion?

Helen & David: About 18 months. Yeah, probably 18 months, yeah. We had, ⁓ so going back to when David first saw the house and he said, the one that we were going to buy and do up, he said, ⁓ I think you'll really like it, come and look at it. And that was the November. We sold our house in the January. So we were in a position to make an offer. But when I'd seen the house, that's when I looked over the fence and said, ⁓ what's going on in the plot next door? So by the time we'd moved, was June 2024, and then we moved in in April 25. So quite a long process to get there, but the actual build was pretty good. It was about nine months of build, and then we moved in and then there was still sort of two or three months of doing the outside and a few extra cosmetic things.

Mayflower Mortgage: And was there anything you didn't anticipate throughout the process? Or was it anything that cropped up that you weren't...

Helen & David: The gardens and the exterior were the biggest thing because the house itself was slightly on a slope here. the problem is that to sort of nullify the slope at the back, we need to do some steps in the garden. And he was a bit sort of simplistic about his approach to finishing off the garden. So we ended up spending another 30 grand on garden design and planting and all of those sorts of things. So the house itself, pretty complete. The garden was the big overrun.

Mayflower Mortgage: sort of the big, big sort of bit of the, when did you do the garden? Do you do it at the end, so traditional, finish the house, get it completed, and then yeah, kick on to finishing the landscaping in the garden.

Helen & David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we, had to do something because we've got massive bifolds and then we would have had a big drop down. So it was, we were already planning it when ahead of the finish because otherwise it would have been dangerous. Basically it's quite a drop when you haven't got the steps and the platform that we've done, the nice terrace. But I think other than that, we, our objective was to come out of this still being on good terms with the developer because I think developers get quite a bad reputation sometimes. And if we look back, we didn't really know him. We'd done some due diligence, but we didn't really know him. And buying it at the time we did where it was literally just the footings in the ground, we had a long way to go, but we did come out on really good terms and we've had our moments of course. So I always say, yeah, yeah, but I always say,

Mayflower Mortgage: building a house.

Helen & David: He, this is a formula, he's done this before and he's never sold it this early. So when I said, ⁓ we'd like a slightly bigger island or we wanted little tweaks, you could tell he was a bit, ⁓ well, you know, I like it like this. And we kept saying, well, it's our baby as well. ⁓ So there was a few moments where I think he would have preferred it to be his way. And I chose pink towels for one of the bathrooms and he wasn't keen on those. They're not Barbie pink, not like this, but a really beautiful pink. So there was moments like that where I think he would say, ⁓ I would never have picked that, but we absolutely love it. other thing, the other thing just on the finance side is once the independent surveyor had said, yes, the stage point has been reached, I basically paid him within 24 hours. So.

Mayflower Mortgage: think that's one of the main advantages of it as well.

Helen & David: You know, there was no messing around with, oh, we'll just hold off a bit. And so, you know, he got his money. He knew that once he'd done a stage, there was a slug of money coming through. And, you know, that just made things easier because there was never any, we didn't delay a stage at all. And if anything needed sorting out, it sort of got put on a an agreed list, though wasn't a very big list, but an agreed list of things to do and because he was receiving his money, he kind of did those as good wills after.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, the stage payment helps the builder in terms of it gives you a sort of finite line to get to from his bill stage. And then when the payment is due as well, and then the payment, know, that it's when it's got to the stage, the payment is coming, all the funds are coming and therefore you can make the payment. It probably helps from, from both sides. I love what you said about the.

Helen & David: Thanks for helping. Yeah. I'd just done that. Sorry, just on that. He had another project that was getting underway. So we knew that we were helping him accelerate that next project, which was a series of barns down in one of the villages. So I think we worked really well together because as David said, we didn't mess around on payment. And then he knew he had predictability. Once we'd got maybe two payments and he knew the way we operated, I think he really respected that. And then it meant he could progress his other project.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, your one becomes a certainty, the one that's running smoothly and it can sort of bank on that to, do the other projects. I think that's a great point. We said about the tiles and choosing those sort of design features that against that sort of traditional national health builder, what you buy is what you get. There's a little tweaks that will make it a little bit more personal and a little bit more bespoke to you. And again, that's that sort of self-beloved element to it. What advice would you give to anyone that sort of

Helen & David: Mm.

Mayflower Mortgage: looking to do the same route that you have. If you have any sort of advice for anyone, sort of pitfalls that you're trying to avoid or...

Helen & David: ⁓ The only one for me that was the big gotcha ⁓ was the exterior because the house itself was really, really self-contained. It was a written document. There was very little variability within the house itself. The externals though, that potentially could have run away. mean, arguably it did run away. because it was another 35, well with planting probably 45,000. And he didn't really, he wasn't really interested in that. He would have had to have done it to sell the house under the old way, but because it was not in the specification, I guess we could have agreed something with him. So that would be one area. The independent surveyor, I wouldn't do a project like that without an independent surveyor because, you know, the potential to fall out with someone and not have a referee is massive. And we just on that, we, it wasn't cheap, but I would say it was value for money because as David said, we didn't know that it was going to go well. But if we'd have had, you know, stage payment three and we were arguing and then he down tools, who would we have gone to? We would have been we wouldn't have a clue. So I would say definitely invest in a surveyor. And he put a warranty in place. he chose a company called ABC Warranties, which Saffron wanted anyway. you know, they were, they were insistent that there was a warranty in place. So he did all the work on the warranty. Early, the other thing, just early days, this is worth mentioning. We

Mayflower Mortgage: added layer security.

Helen & David: Part of the initial negotiation, we got a little bit of a disagreement with him over a thing called a SIL, which is Community Infrastructure Levy Payment. And because it was so early, he tried a little bit to pass that off onto us. And it was about £120,000. So it's quite a lot of money. Now, because we said no to it, we agreed at price without the SIL.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah, they can be tasty.

Helen & David: Be careful of who's paying things like the SIL, connection to electric, connection to phone, know those sorts of things because you can sort of run in phone and electric and not big numbers, know small numbers of thousands but that SIL one is a significant amount of money and you won't get your address registered with local authority if the SIL is not paid.

Mayflower Mortgage: Look at the little things that are around the just the project itself. Focus on some of the the added extras and from your side, how stressful was it? Was it? Was it all all right?

Helen & David: Yeah. ⁓ no. Well, we're pretty chilled people, to be honest. So we deal well with issues, I think. ⁓ But we put, as David said, put people in place that would support us. ⁓ Some days, you know, there'd be a knock at the door and come around now, you've got to make a decision. And we were both working full time. that... was sometimes a little, I wouldn't call it stressful, but it was a little bit like inconvenient because I wasn't in the head space of I've got to decide on where I want the bathroom, the layout, you know, that's not really what I'm good at. ⁓ but I just want to go back to one thing when we were talking about any lessons learned, I think the other thing would be we really listened to what your developer is saying and clarified because we've misunderstood a few things post sale. on, so snagging, no issues and we've hardly had any snags. But he said, leave it 12 months, let the house settle and then we'll do the cracks. ⁓ And there are quite a few cracks, which is natural. But it turned out when we've been in the house a year now in April, and we contacted him about, right, let's crack on with all the cracks, very poor phrasing. And he said, ⁓ yeah, okay, I can recommend someone for you to use. And it turns out we've got to pay for that. So I think David and I were a little bit surprised because we thought it was something he would be doing. But we checked with other people that he sold houses to and it's not part of the contract, even though we were thinking it was. So just little bits of clarity when you're not sure, I would say double, double check.

Mayflower Mortgage: a great point. Check the final detail. And have you both got a favorite part of the house?

Helen & David: Hmm. Probably the room we're in at the moment, you can't see it, but it's a big ⁓ kitchen with TV area, bifolds into the back of the garden. It's brilliant, it's fantastic. It's where we spend most of our time. I also love the top floor has got Velox windows and the view, it's my favorite thing to do when, because obviously a lot of people on the road had seen it being built and wanted to come over. So we always give them the guided tour. You know, why wouldn't you when they've put up with the construction for all that time? And I love taking people up to the top floor, fling open the big vellet's window and the view over to the river is just stunning. And sometimes the mist is in the valley and it just looks beautiful.

Mayflower Mortgage: amazing and how did it how did it sort of feel the process compared to buying a standard prophecy? Would you do it again as opposed to the main one?

Helen & David: ⁓ Yeah, I think ⁓ I would do it again. I'd need to feel ⁓ confident that the person that was building it for you had that level of flexibility. So I wouldn't, for example, I wouldn't go to one of the major builders and think that I could get what we've got here. We, you know, because I think they are far more prescriptive and probably they would wait until they'd finished before they sold it to you anyway. So I'd do it again, but I'd find a builder that had the same level of kind of attention to detail and, ⁓ you know, either ⁓ an attractive house. ⁓ Yeah, I probably would do We would do it again. We would. Not now though, we're too old, but we're not leaving here anytime soon.

Mayflower Mortgage: Never soon.

Helen & David: So yeah, I doubt we'll ever do it again, but I would certainly recommend it to people if you, as David said, check who you're dealing with. Because I knew, well, we knew the houses that he'd built before, and I actually put a note through the door of one of the houses to say, look, I totally understand if you don't want to show us around, but we're going to buy the exact same house as you. Could we come and look at yours? And luckily, it was a lady that lived there on her own, and she... messaged me back and said, yeah, of course, come round. So we felt very thankful to her and we were able to ask her about our developer and she had had a similar experience to us. It's slightly bespoke and had come out on good terms. So that was reassuring. And so I think you should do that because if we'd have just come into this with no background, I think it could have been a very different experience.

Mayflower Mortgage: Yeah. And I think you don't ask, you don't get, and again, it's like self-built community almost that they've gone through the same process of you. They'll have had exactly the same fears and sort of concerns. So, you know, I'm sure specifically if someone put a note through your door to ask you can have a look around, you'd do the same. yeah, if you're going to do this, this sort of route and you know, the developer, you know, the project that's done before there's definitely no harm in, harm in asking.

Helen & David: Yeah.

Mayflower Mortgage: For anyone who's listening, considering the sort of custom build route rather than your bog standard purchase, buying it off the shelf or the full sort of self-build than it's in its traditional sense. What are the sort of top three things that you'd sort of tell them before they start?

Helen & David: ⁓ Well, my top three would be know what you're going to get for the money that you've got. Employ an independent surveyor through the process and if the builder's done what they say they've done, pay them.

Mayflower Mortgage: Good advice on that one. Helen, anything to add from your side?

Helen & David: ⁓ Don't be afraid to sort push back because maybe it was the developer we had is quite a big character, ⁓ quite strong willed, but there were times where we did say, no, this is our house and we've bought it. So we would like this. And I think it depends on your character, but you could get some developers who are very, very fixed. ⁓ But if you're doing it the way we did, you've got the right to say, no, I would like this. So make sure you get what you want and don't be afraid to speak up and say that.

Mayflower Mortgage: That's amazing. ⁓ thank you both so much for sort of sharing your, your journey and giving us some brilliant insights around how custom build can sort of differ and can sort of enhance what you're looking to do when you're looking to buy a house. again, like so many of these conversations is don't be fixated on one, on sort of one route in the start. You're looking after, you're looking to get a standard new build property and you've ended up custom building your house with hopefully a little bit more. design input a little bit more sort of specified to what you want. And yeah, hopefully you've got your forever home and long may you enjoy it.

Helen & David: Yeah. For sure.

Mayflower Mortgage: Alright, well thank you for coming on and thank you for using Mayflower and I'll speak again soon.

Helen & David: Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.

Mayflower Mortgage: Cheers.