When my husband and I were looking for a home, he started looking at foreclosures, which I was against because I didn't want to kick someone out of their home. He found a property he loved, I told him if he wanted it so bad he would have to figure out a way to do it without the auction. He contacted the owner directly and made a deal with him. We paid off his loan so the bank couldn't foreclose on him and gave him a good chunk of money. He left with more than he would have and we got it for a great price.
Forty odd years ago we were looking for a house with land. We contacted land agents and spotted the holding while driving by. The property was going to auction, but we put in an offer prior to auction and after a little negotiation this was accepted. The time was right, our children were primary school age so we went for it. The house needed a lot of work, I'd collect the kids from school covered in old plaster dust etc, but it was worth it.
Really appreciate the dept and breadth of the information and openness. Thank you and I look forward to following you for many years to see how you grow it all. Take care.
I looked and looked for a small farm, asked land agents , left my details, kept contacting them and such, but gave up. I was told I’d need at least £1M .
Thank you also for this information and insight. When you mentioned writing a letter I had never thought to do that before, and it was confirmation to me of words that had been spoken the day before. Blessings to you and your family
You are such an inspiration, amazing and you inspired us to create our RU-vid channel with how incredibly natural and real you are. We went through a really tough patch last year, we lost our farmland and ended up renting a really rundown patch of land. Its nothing like what you have but creating the videos is spurring us on and keeping us going. One day, you never know but we might be in a position to have a farm again. We can only live in hope.
Bought mine old school knocked on the door sat down with a brew and made the offer and went through our plans for the property going forward Ours was a good offer but we said we didn't want to rip it to bits as it didn't need it one other bidder wanted to gut it The seller wanted it to go to a family and be a family home not a developer flipping it Going old school worked perfect Yes we have done some work but it's still a period property done with sympathy not all modern etc
We bought a Croft in Scotland in Oct 2020, we spotted another croft on rightmove and tried to contact the estate agent, however as it was lock down, they never picked up. The croft had planning permission and I managed to identify the owner from looking at the drawings. I then contacted him directly at which point he said "which one are you interested in I have 4 for sale. The croft we bought was a totally different one, 24 acres, 700m of sea front. We placed the offer before actually viewing it due to covid travel restrictions and it was 500 miles away from where we lived in Dorset. We had to remortgage our old house to buy the Croft as Mortgages are not allowed on Crofts. We've then had to decroft the house plot to enable us to get a mortgage. It was a big risk, but its worked out. Currently living in a caravan while we build an off grid house. Cormonachan Croft
That's a great insight and I really enjoyed hearing about how you approached it. A few years ago I took on a similar agricultural plot (orchard) that had a fruit store and packing building attached with the intention of restoring the orchard, puting the buildings back into use and get permission for an agricultural tie for a small house. The opportunity came from a chance discussion with a member of the parish council who was aware of the upcoming sale. The restoration of the orchard led to a too good to say no offer from the plot's neighbour which funded a self-build near-by. It wasn't without risk, but the approach I took was to look to add value to the land and de-risk the financial outlay -especially as I'd borrowed from family. But to your point, it was taking to people with local knowledge that paid off rather than exhaustive searches on-line or through property listings.
We did exactly the same thing with the letter, it honestly works wonders. Strongly recommend using this method when looking at properties and sealed bids is the route taken.
Hi All. difficult think to quantify . But it is ultimately down to what you can safely afford . As things are at the moment should interest rates start to rise people need to be cognitive of possible increase demands on their financial situation. . My first mortgage in the late 70s was at 16% so I don’t wish for those times to return , but common sense tells me things are about to change . Hopefully not to those 1970s levels , but definitely they will increase . Kind regards as always
Fascinating overview Tim. As someone hunting for a self-build plot, it’s helpful not only to hear about how you found the farm, but also the mindset re risks/opportunities. It’s certainly a HUGELY competitive market out there, probably more so over the last couple of years than ever before, so any competitive edge is helpful! All the best with the project.
Interesting and different. Rural land/house shopping. Financing, though, sounds about the same. When we found the house we are in (our second), we had to put in an offer before our first house was even on the market. When our offer (over asking) was accepted, we were the proud, slightly panicked owners of two houses. And a bridge loan. Fortunately our first house sold so quickly we never had to actually finalize the bridge loan. Thanks for the video.
I think that could almost have been the case with this purchase as they almost crossed over. As it was only a couple of weeks we were also able to avoid the bridging risk
Thank you very much for introducing how to find a farm and how to bid, and contacting the owner..... it sounds quite stressful, especially the finance part. I learnt a lot.
We bought an old cottage at auction, without a survey, expecting to either knock it down or heavily restore. Once you factor in the cost of getting water, electric and a septic system to a rural site the house with the land and all of the services was better value for money than a blank site, in my opinion.
For that price I’m expecting you are very rural not near much I’ve seen some prices in Great Britain and very expensive.Same as in Australia to get some land for that price you need to be hours away from cities with nothing around or you will be spending millions
Could you buy a couple of castrated bulls, put them in a field just to keep the grass down and then in six to twelve months sell them for slaughter?. Would that be a feasible proposition?.
WOW that is incredible - 250/255 (assume thousand pounds) - is like $315k USD... That would buy you a nice sized home without much land in most rural places in the US, or maybe a place with a few acres but a tiny house. House prices are nuts here - I have a coworker who spent $600k on a condo, and that was as cheap as he could find one. A nice sized home here in the Seattle suburbs is now $1m!!
Don't assume that all property in the UK is that cheap. Important thing to remember is that this plot was sold prior to planning permission so any purchaser is taking a risk. If the plot had a house and 20 acres, in most locations in the UK you're looking at getting towards £1m. I imagine the housing market in the UK is not too dissimilar to the USA, some cheap properties are available but certainly not the norm
Guide price of 250k was not the purchase price! Tim does say that all the bids were above that and it seems they paid at least 50% more, ( I apologise if I misinterpreted ). It is normal to have a GUIDE price a lot lower than the actual value of a property to garner interest, consequently most sell for a considerable amount more.
We put our house on the market before we looked properly for another place, we found a house through word of mouth before it went on the market. It was in the same village as we lived and we knew the neighbours so we put finance in place with a building society, then the day it went on the market we had a viewing on the Saturday and put an offer in on the Monday and it was accepted. We still had not sold our house though so we put a substantial deposit down and took about a 10 year interest only loan , knowing we had money in our house to pay it off. Houses weren’t selling so after 12 months our daughter said can she rent it at mates rates for her family, after she’d been in it she asked if she could buy it but it would cost me £20,000 in collateral for her deposit. Long and short she’s been their 6 years with another child and making it her home in her way, me I have a nice house loverly view all paid off
Great to have the background. Looking forward to the overview and future plans. Love seeing the whole family involved, love seeing the dog in with the chickens and pigs without bloodshed........but I think I heard mention of sheep........bring on the sheep! 😁
great vid, thanks. yea, im just nosy really, so love the idea of a whole layout vid, with new house. that will be fun ( for us). to watch you build a house .
It's really interesting what you are doing Tim. Did you find it difficult to get finance as you are a self employed photographer arn't you? I was wandering if your RU-vid is helping you with the fixing up bills But totally understand if that's too much info for you to talk about. It is amazing what you are taking on.
We were fortunate to have plenty of equity in our last house to rely on. Certainly would not have been possible based on income, just that all the hard work we put into the previous house paid off.
Great content as always. Nice to follow someone on a similar journey to us. Sounds like great plans are afoot and look forward to watching more of your new lifestyle.
Be Carful looking on 'UK land and farms' 2:35, we rang about three properties that were advertised there and had been sold over a year ago, don't build your hopes up until you call .
If you want to know exactly you will be able to find it as you say, though probably not for a while yet until the records are updated. But he was generous enough to give a pretty good indication. I'm not really sure knowing the exact figure is of much relevance to most people.
I watch this channel like I watch a Netflix/TV show! I need more ‘episodes!’ I really enjoy your content, I don’t know where you get all the time for everything!
I’ve watched a lot of your videos and really enjoy your projects. This video was right up my street as I’m a mortgage broker that deals with these sort of scenarios so it was really interesting to see what worked for you. Happy to answer any questions any of your subscribers have!
Thank you so much for sharing, and good luck with everything. I've been following your progress for a while and can't wait to see your plans for the future. I try and do it myself, with varying degrees of success 😉.
Sounds like you got it all for a very good price. I am assuming you are south of Bristol rather than north for that kind of price. I was looking for a similar property for a few years and recently bought north of Bristol, only 5 acres but with a lot of smaller sheds and a farm house. All needs renovating though lots of potential / options. Around 4 times your guide price. Not quite the perfect property for my plans, but lots of other boxes ticked for family life so overall the best all rounder we found. Always envious of the prices south of Bristol though
