Building a house in Clare

L

lisaw

Guest
Hi,

Just wondering if we are mad to try and build a house in the current climate. Everyone else is battening down the hatches and here we are taking a mortgage to build a simple 4 bed house + garage 2,700sq ft. We have a site and an architect, but are looking for a builder. Builder quotes have ranged from 400,000 to 500,000. We were hoping to build for way less .. are we living in cuckoo land to think we can build for €350,000 or less?
 
lisaw said:
Hi,

Just wondering if we are mad to try and build a house in the current climate. Everyone else is battening down the hatches and here we are taking a mortgage to build a simple 4 bed house + garage 2,700sq ft. We have a site and an architect, but are looking for a builder. Builder quotes have ranged from 400,000 to 500,000. We were hoping to build for way less .. are we living in cuckoo land to think we can build for €350,000 or less?
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Unless you have specified a huge amount of upgrades over a standard spec I would say that it's the builders (400 - 500K) that are in cuckoo land.
 
sas said:
Unless you have specified a huge amount of upgrades over a standard spec I would say that it's the builders (400 - 500K) that are in cuckoo land.
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Totally agreed. Keep looking for builders, there are some who would make a decent living on 70-90 per sq foot for a builders finish. Ignore the rest of the chancers.
 
We are also in discussions with builders from Clare and around to build in Clare and some of the initial quotes were quiet large. But we are sticking with them and getting them to detail everything and playing them off each other - some are not interested in reducing, but most are willing to sit down and discuss what can be cut. We have found that we need to be a bit flexible as well with we can reduce in our spec.

Clare planning permissions laws don't help as we have to have sliding sash windows and natural slate tiles on both the house and garage - this adds a huge amount to the over all bill.
 
Clarelassie said:
We are also in discussions with builders from Clare and around to build in Clare and some of the initial quotes were quiet large. But we are sticking with them and getting them to detail everything and playing them off each other - some are not interested in reducing, but most are willing to sit down and discuss what can be cut. We have found that we need to be a bit flexible as well with we can reduce in our spec.

Clare planning permissions laws don't help as we have to have sliding sash windows and natural slate tiles on both the house and garage - this adds a huge amount to the over all bill.
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I'm genuinely not trying to be smart but the building industry is on life support. I can't understand how any builder could arrive at 400 - 500k for a 2700 sq ft house and garage.

My brother in law is building a 2300 sq ft house for 185k with a builder to standard builders finish. His 1000 sq ft garage is being built for something like 12k by the same fellow. 15k would easily cover the upgrade to natural slate (excluding blue bangor which happens to be particularly expensive). Sash windows wouldn't add another 50k. So conservatively his house could cost 260k with the significant upgrade. This is in the midlands. To be honest I'll be surprised if the 185k doesn't expand somewhat on extras because it really is a particularly low price. But it's still well short of the 400 - 500k.

If you really can't get cheaper quotes I'd consider sitting tight for 6 months.
 
hey lisa,im working on a house in the fanore area at the moment around 2800sq ft.very high spec,and i know with this house there was a 70,000 variation in the prices,so if you are interested i can forward the builders details too you and you could also come and check out the house yourself,just let me know and i can forward on the details.and good luck.i got my raft in last thrsday and i think its alot better too be building now than a year or two ago.
 
Unless its a bungalow with a very high spec 400k to 500k is ridiculous. I'm in the traade and rates are pretty rock bottom at the minute, definitely the right time to build if you can. E65 to E75 per square foot should be achievable if you push reasonably hard but I'd advise that you pay a quantity surveyor a few hundred quid to check over any quotes to make sure that you're not exposed to big variations or extras. These will invariably occur but you can limit your exposure to a builder taking the p**s.
BTW, a friend self built his house last year and got sliding sash windows from england for about a third of the price he was quoted here. Wood grain effect PVC that look the part. Will be doing the same for mine.
Good luck.
 
lisaw said:
Hi,

Just wondering if we are mad to try and build a house in the current climate. Everyone else is battening down the hatches and here we are taking a mortgage to build a simple 4 bed house + garage 2,700sq ft. We have a site and an architect, but are looking for a builder. Builder quotes have ranged from 400,000 to 500,000. We were hoping to build for way less .. are we living in cuckoo land to think we can build for €350,000 or less?
Click to expand...

Sounds very expensive, are you on the side of a hill of rock and getting a large basement? Is there demolition required?

Keep looking, what about direct labour?

Joejoe
 
Lisaw and Clarelassie,

I know a builder who has built small exclusive estates, holiday homes, once-off houses etc. in Clare. I am related to the builder but he has also built my house and it is good quality. He also has a special interest in energy efficiency.

Is it allowed to post details or I could PM you both if you don't mind?
 
have to agree, that price is off the rails

i am doing a self build in clare, 2700 sg ft, two storey, with a garage, 25ftx 30 ft,

hope to be done and dusted for 200k max, and we are not cutting corners by any means, granted we did not have to use natural slate, but we did use the pre cast floor and loads of insulation, its not as bad as people lead you to believe.

loads of gteat help on here too by the way,, keep checking in
 
Thanks for the replies. It is great of you all to share your costs.

[SIZE=+0]Let me elaborate on the price: it includes one and half storey house, effluent treatment system, wood pellet system, aluclad windows, underfloor heating, stove, solar panels, electrics, kitchen, bathrooms. So the whole house finished will cost 400,000. What we are negotiating now is to change our spec i.e. oil heating, different windows (which, as baldyman27 also mentions will help costs). [/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0][/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0]Also our architect has another client who have put their house on hold until next year to see how prices change. And sas has mentioned this too. I think we will press on for now.
[/SIZE][/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0][/SIZE][SIZE=+0]
We (our architect really) are talking to the cheapest builder only so I will now send out our plans to more builders.

[/SIZE][SIZE=+0]And Clarelassie would you believe, the only thing Clare coco said we could not have was white pvc windows ... [/SIZE]
 
I am doing some renovations myself at the moment (in Clare) Around 40K of work. No bother getting trades people but I also noticed that there is can be a big variation in supplies from different builders providers.

I reckon the price of materials will keep falling, small quarries will be offering blocks, sand etc. at reduced rates. Cash will be king and I have been able to force most suppliers to knock 10% off materials for cash - IE flooring, windows etc.

I would go for selfbuild and take your time, dealing hard cash all the way.
 
Thanks for all the responses.

Just one question - are the prices ye are quoting per sq ft inclusive of vat or without?

Thanks again!
 
Thanks Sas - just met with a builder tonight - including vat, he is looking for 106.5 a sq/ft - we are looking for a build cost (considering we have sliding sash windows on house and natural slate on roof of garage and house) of 96 to meet our budget (excluding tiling/floors, kitchen, painting etc).

We have a fairly high spec and are limited by our planning conditions - do you think we should hold out or will we have to go down the self build option (rather not as neither of us has experience building before and reluctant in case of mistakes on our home for hopefully at least the next 20/30 years!)

We still have another 2 builders (out of initial quotes of 6 builders) to meet, but from initial responses they don't seem far off this guy so far.

Thanks for all your help!
 
Have you thought about pricing the slate and sash windows yourself- then ask builder for a quote without these ( ie for a standard build), asking him to detail pc sum for roof tiles and windows. Deduct pc sum from quote then add on what you know will be the cost of slate and windows. Buy them yourself, builder to fit. This may dramatically effect your overall price. I feel your pain as we built in Kerry and also had natural slate roof, aluclad sash windows and worse, all around native stone etc. We dealt with it by getting builders to quote as normal ensuring they detailed the pc sums and then paid for extras ourselves. BTW I have seen contracts for building in East Clare in the past few months at 75 per square foot builders finish, but standard build materials.
 
We got a builder in Clare who works by himself and he got all the trades in for us. He supervised and did all the extra work along with the carpentry. He charged us a daily rate of €150. He saved us a fortune. He cut all our original prices and so he basically paid for himself.

We built over the last two years when prices were very high to a high spec for €130 per sq ft. That was finished with alu clad windows, solid timber floors, marble tiles, bespoke painted kitchen with island, cat cabling throughout house, geothermal, underfloor heating, solid fuel stove and a heat recovery system. It even included fencing and topsoil.

hth
 
Hi all,

I will be starting a build in the coming months in Clare also - East Clare.

If anyone could give me the contact details of reasonable plumbers and block-layers I would appreciate it.

I have requested a quote from a number of plumbers and I am finding it impossible to get the quote off them - not returning calls, then saying they'll have it in a few days and I hear nothing.....if I didn't know better I'd swear we were in the middle of a boom !! Only one plumber out of four got back to me, and that was after waiting 3 months !

I am building a 2400 sq ft house - builders quoted me from 211K up to 240K. I have decided to go direct labour.
 
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