How Much Does it Cost to Build a House?
What is the average cost to build a house?
The average cost of building a new house is somewhere between £1,750 and £3,000 per m2. For a new build two-bedroom house it would about £167,000 to £312,000 in total for construction.
What about the price to build larger homes?
The prices rise to about £214,500 to £402,000 for a three-bedroom house, £260,000 to £489,000 for a four-bedroom house, or £286,000 to £537,000 for a five-bedroom house. You’d need a budget of somewhere in the range of £184,500 to £563,000 for a bungalow.
The price you can expect to pay for building a new house will mostly depend on the size of the house.
But what can change the total cost a of a new build?
Among the key cost factors for a new house build are the number of tradespeople hired, ease of access, and where you live.
Contractors/labourers tend to charge lower rates than the UK average in regions such as the north of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
The labour costs in London are generally higher than other areas in the UK.
On the other hand, labour fees are generally highest in the southeast and London, especially.
New Build Prices
Check out the table below to get an idea of the average cost to build a house:
| House Size | Labour Cost | Supply Costs | Cost of Build |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Bedroom House | £27,000 to £42,000 | £140,000 to £270,000 | £167,000 to £312,000 |
| 3 Bedroom House | £36,000 to £54,000 | £178,500 to £348,000 | £214,500 to £402,000 |
| 4 Bedroom House | £43,000 to £66,000 | £217,000 to £423,000 | £260,000 to £489,000 |
| 5 Bedroom House | £48,000 to £72,000 | £238,000 to £465,000 | £286,000 to £537,000 |
| Bungalow | £27,000 to £83,000 | £157,500 to £480,000 | £184,500 to £563,000 |
- How Much Does it Cost to Build a House?
- What are the Supply Costs of a New House Build?
- What are the Additional Costs of a New House Build?
- Tradesmen Costs for New House Construction
- How Long Does It Take to Build a New Home?
- Types of Property
- Benefits of a New House Build
- How Much Does It Cost to Demolish a Home?
- FAQs
- Sources
What are the Supply Costs of a New House Build?
In this section, we’ll break down the supply costs only. On average, the cost of materials needed to build a house will make up about 80-85% of the total cost with the labour expenses landing around 15-20% altogether.
The average supply costs of building a two-bedroom house are £140,000 to £270,000. Expect the supply costs to be around £178,500 to £348,000 for a three-bedroom house, £217,000 to £423,000 for a four-bedroom house, or £238,000 to £465,000 in the case of a five-bedroom house. To have a bungalow built, the material costs will likely land between £157,500 and £480,000.
Supply Costs of Building a New House
| Size of House | Supply Costs |
|---|---|
| 2 Bedroom House | £140,000 to £270,000 |
| 3 Bedroom House | £178,500 to £348,000 |
| 4 Bedroom House | £217,000 to £423,000 |
| 5 Bedroom House | £238,000 to £465,000 |
| Bungalow | £157,500 to £480,000 |
What are the Additional Costs of a New House Build?
There are many added costs that may be included in your final bill when having a new house built. Let’s closely examine some options.
Minimum Fee
Firstly, when having a house constructed, you may face a minimum fee regardless of the extent or nature of the project.
This may be added to the overall costs or incorporated. For example, if you are being charged by the day, it won’t matter whether the work ends after two hours on the day last or eight hours into the final as to how many days of labour you’ll be charged for.
Either way, a minimum fee, however, would likely be a negligible cost for such an expensive endeavour.
Size/Type of Property
The type and size of the property being built are the most important cost factors. For instance, a two-bedroom house build will likely cost under £300K, while a five-bedroom house will cost close to or even more than half a million in total.
Materials
Costs can also vary depending on the materials used. For instance, it would be cheaper to have a house made of a material such as bamboo, but one that is built with expensive stone like limestones or marble would be more costly.
Cladding prices can vary significantly, with timber cladding or concrete block with render cladding costing about £25 to £35 per m2 but rubber walling or flint cladding likely to set you back between £90 and £100 per m2. Likewise, roofing materials can differ in price substantially.
Number of Tradespeople
It goes without saying that the multiple labourers are needed to build a house, the higher your labour expenses will be. However, with a bigger team constructing a new build home, the quicker the job will likely take.
Whether this will cancel out the higher labour cost is hard to say. Ultimately, it will depend on how well the builders work together.
Timeframe
In general, the longer a house build lasts, the higher the labour expenses will be. Unless some fixed costs are given in advance, then duration may not matter per se. It will simply depend on the company.
Legal Fees
As for legal fees, these tend to come to around £500 to £1000. They appear in the form stamp duty and land tax with the figure being 1% for land/house purchases valued between £125,001 to £250,000, 3% for those valued at £250,001 to £500,000, or 4% if the land/house purchase is valued at over £500,000.
Planning Permission and Building Regulations
On average, planning permission fees will set you back around £300 to £370 for a new build house, with building regulations costs landing around £500 to £1,000. If you are unsure about any aspects of planning permission or building regulations approval, you should contact your local council.
Topographical Site Survey
If applicable, you should have a topographical site survey performed by a professional(s), which would cost about £350 to £500 altogether.
Tradesmen Costs for New House Construction
We’ve looked at the cost of the materials involved in building a house. Let’s now more closely examine the labour expenses involved. We’ll also discuss the factors in determining the labour cost in this section.
The professional fees involved in building a new house would land around £27,000 to £42,000 for a two-bedroom house, £36,000 to £54,000 for a three-bedroom house, or £43,000 to £66,000 for a four-bedroom house.
If you’d like to have a five-bedroom house built, expect the tradesperson costs to be around £48,000 to £72,000 with the labour price for a bungalow build being about £27,000 to £83,000.
Labour expenses can be influenced by the number of tradespeople hired, ease of access, the state of the work area, and property location.
How Long Does It Take to Build a New Home?
We’ll now consider the time frames involved in building houses of various types/sizes. In this section, we’ll also touch on the factors that can impact the time it takes to build a new house.
It will take roughly 16-18 weeks to build a two-bedroom house, 19-21 weeks for a three-bedroom house, 23-25 weeks to construct a four-bedroom house, or 25-27 weeks for a five-bedroom house.
As for a bungalow, it could take anywhere from 17-28 weeks to construct. The key time factors in determining the duration of building a new house are ease of access, the state of the work area, and the number of labourers working on the project.
Types of Property
For this section, we’ll discuss some of the key options when it comes to choosing a type of property for a new home build. We’ll look at what these options feature, their pros & cons, and average costs.
House Cost
Looking at the main choices for building a new home, the most obvious option is to have a house built rather than a bungalow. The cost of a new house construction can vary greatly depending on the size/number of bedrooms.
With a house, you get an additional floor over a bungalow and arguably better security. However, houses may not be considered private, and they tend to be more difficult to alter. The cost of building a new home if you’re going with a house can range from £167,000 to £537,000.
Pros:
- Additional floor
- Possibly better security
Cons:
- Not as private
- More challenging to alter
Bungalow Cost
If you’d prefer a bungalow, this usually single-storey building is of course usually smaller than an average house in the total area. However, that is not always true, depending on how wide the bungalow is.
Bungalows can offer better privacy, and they generally have a more robust value, higher, are easier to modify, and tend to be more private. That said, bungalows have a lower value per square metre than a house, and they can be more challenging to create a layout plan for.
The cost of building a bungalow tends to land between £184,500 and £563,000.
Pros:
- Tend to be cheaper overall
- Usually have a more robust value
- Easier to modify
- Privacy
Cons:
- More difficult layout plan
- Lower cost per m2
Benefits of a New House Build
There are several core advantages to building a new house. Let’s take a closer look at some of the best examples.
Affordability
The first benefit of building a new house worth considering is that it is cheaper overall than buying an already built house on the market. Under a specific cost, a deposit of just 5% is needed.
The Help to Buy Scheme makes it easier for people to build a new house. This scheme is available throughout most of the UK with the exception of Northern Ireland.
Personal Touch
Of course, given that you are having a house built, it can be customised based on your preferences. While you’ll need an architect or a professional designer to help draw the layout for your new home build, you can have your preferences brought to life with your input.
Energy Efficient
Given that a new house build will be using modern approaches to construction, in most cases, insulation and energy efficiency will be heavily incorporated after buying a new build house.
This is more environmentally friendly and reduces your energy bills. If this is a particularly important point for you, you should make sure to discuss this with the construction company in advance.
How Much Does It Cost to Demolish a Home?
You may choose to have a home demolished because it’s unsafe, it would cost too much to renovate it effectively, or you plan to build a new structure on your land, in place of a home.
The average cost of removing a house is somewhere between £6,000 and £8,000 for an 80-120m2 property, about £8,000 to £12,000 for a property of 120m2 to 200m2, or around £12,000 to £15,000 if the property is between 200m2 and 250m2 in size.
FAQs
Q: How can I finance building a new home?
A: There are several approaches to financing the construction of a new home. For one, saving, where possible can go some way toward meeting new house build prices. Then there is the consideration of selling your current house in order to finance new construction.
However, this would be something of a calculated risk as you’d need to consider where you would stay in the meantime and whether you could afford to stay elsewhere (e.g., paying rent).
Of course, you could also borrow and take out a mortgage. No doubt, these options are not open to everyone, especially in the current circumstances, but these three avenues offer possible approaches regardless.
Either way, you should talk with a financial planner/advisor before making any big decisions as the process of buying a new build house is complicated.
Q: What questions should you ask a builder when building a new home?
A: There are many, many questions you should ask before hiring someone to build what may be your home for the rest of your life. Just to give a few examples:
- What is your price estimation?
- How long will construction take?
- What are the details of your new home warranty?
- How long have you been working on building new homes? And how many have you built?
- Would I be able to look at some references for previous work?
- In what ways would my new home be energy-efficient/to what extent?
- How/when will my final bill be determined?
- Can I take a look at a project you’re working on at the moment?
- What are the regular features of the homes you construct and are there any optional upgrades? If so, what are they?
- Can I provide you with my own plans for building a new house? Or do you stick to a standard floor plan for all your builds?
Q: How long to build a house?
A: On average, four to six months.
Q: What are the most eco-friendly materials for a building house?
A: Among the most environmentally friendly construction materials available are bamboo, recycled steel, and precast concrete.
Q: How much does planning permission cost?
A: In the case of a new house build, the fees will likely come to about £300 to £370.
Sources
- https://www.self-build.co.uk/build-it-awards-all-the-best-home-winners/
- https://www.askdifference.com/house-vs-bungalow/
- https://www.propertymark.co.uk/advice-and-guides/buying-a-home/new-build-homes-pros-and-cons.aspx
- https://www.propertymark.co.uk/advice-and-guides/buying-a-home/uk-guide-to-first-time-buyer-schemes/
- https://selfbuildportal.org.uk/sources-of-finance/
- https://www.motherearthnews.com/green-homes/the-most-eco-friendly-home-construction-materials-zbcz1802
