As well as 54% of home owners not having readily available finance, 17% blame a lack of land in the right place, according to a survey from BLP Insurance, a housing warranty insurance provider.
The survey also found that 14% didn’t have the time needed to be able to make the commitment to building their own dream home and many highlighted the inconvenience of the building work and the lack of expertise including not having the right contacts for builders and architects.
Other worries were having a young family and the additional stress that the building work would cause including the fear of dealing with so called rogue traders.
This news comes as the government looks at new initiatives to help generate housing as local governments come under increased pressure to supply more and more new homes. There have also been calls in the last month for the public sector to start releasing land to make way for new developments and get the building boom under way again.
Government figures show that the number of new homes built in the year to March in England was 108,190, down 8% on the year before and 49% below their peak in 2007. Private house builders have accounted for a growing proportion of the homes built in Britain in recent months following the government's Funding for Lending scheme, which cut the cost of borrowing.
‘The lending community are starting to wake up from the hibernation brought on by the recession and there are now more products and funding vehicles on the market which are available to self builders to allow them to get their projects underway. But more still needs to be done to make access to funding easier for a much wider group of aspiring self builders,’ said Brian Kilroy, business development manager at BLP Insurance.
‘Private land owners are starting to realise the financial potential locked in their land and the availability of smaller plots have increased over the last 12 months paving the way for aspiring private house builders to construct their dream home. There is no real immediate solution to solve the problem of lack of land and local councils are under significant pressure to find space for more homes to keep up with the demand while also protecting the green belt areas,’ he explained.
Building your own home is often a lifelong ambition and isn’t something that should be entered into lightly. BLP Insurance believes it is vital that people also take measures to protect your financial investment and seek housing warranty insurance to protect the property should any defects occur.
‘This will ensure that your home and your financial investment is fully protected in the event that anything goes wrong structurally at a later date. It also means that help and advice is on hand throughout the building process offering the developer further reassurance,’ added Kilroy.
