#buildityourself - a guide to building your own house ch1: finding a property

So you want to build a house, but don't know where to start? So, besides saving money (I'll get to that) the first step is to find a property.

You can't design a house if you don't know what the property will look like, what the limitations are in terms of coverage, buildings lines, heights. Where the views are (if any), how the site slopes, where the entrance is etc.

Do you want to live in an estate? Or do you want to live in an established residential area? Do you want to live close to work? Close to your kids' school? Close to the gym, close to a park? These are questions that need to be answered before you embark on your search. Finding the right property is something which can take years, but if you're building a dream house, you'd better make sure it's in the right place.

Estate vs Residential: pros and cons

Estates offer added security, perhaps some kind of communal area such as a pool and braai facilities, or park or pond or whatever the case may be. There are rules in terms of upkeep and maintenance, the type of plants and trees you can plant, how often you need to paint your roof etc, so everyone's houses and properties tend to be kept in good nick, adding to the general investment value of the property. These are all good things.

The downside of estates are their home owner associations, architectural styles and building rules. These influence the price of your house immensely. Most estates stipulate a minimum building area, which means you're not starting out small and adding later. You have to start big and go all in from the start. Unless you have mega bucks this is not your solution. Another cost influence is the stipulated materials which fit the 'style' of the estate. You might be forced to use certain expensive materials which adds to the overall cost... very quickly. Last but not least, there are building/contractor rules - these include things like fencing off the site to screen all construction (added cost), building within 12 months (this could be a good thing), no material stored on the side walk or pavement (limits the material on site and pushes up the building costs) no work on weekends (this is a huge issue - if you are Mr #buildityourself and you want to get your hands dirty building your own house, weekends are when you'll be putting in the hours.... so then an estate is not for you).

In residential areas there are few rules. You'll be paying some extra property tax on your vacant stand, but other than that you can pretty much do what you want, as long as you comply to the building regulations. You can build when you want, for as long as you want, using whatever cheap materials you buy on specials or score form your uncle with the hardware store.

The Search

There are two ways to find a property - either via a listing on a property website, like www.property24.com or www.privateproperty.co.za or by driving through the neighbourhood and physically searching for a vacant stand and then doing a visual search on Google Maps.

Using the first route is the easy way. You find a vacant stand, contact the agent, do a viewing and make a decision whether its gonna work or not (there will always be compromises - but I'll get to that later)

Doing a physical search or a visual search on Maps is where you find the true gems. If you're building your dream house, you're not buying a property that's for sale.....but rather, you're gonna convince the owner to sell.... and I'll discuss how to do that in the next post.