How to Find a Good Building Plot Faster
Get your plot hunt moving with this taster of the expert advice available via Build It’s Virtual Self Build Training courses
The market for plots is very competitive – mostly because the appetite for self build far outweighs the availability of viable, permissioned land to build on. NaCSBA believes around 100,000 people aim to either buy a building plot, obtain planning consent or start their projects on site in the coming year. But the reality is that only 13,000 managed to create a bespoke home in 2018 (so under 15% of those 100,000 people with serious self build ambitions) and one of the key obstacles is securing a viable patch of land..
Why is land so scarce?
In England and Wales, over 90% of land is subject to some kind of legal designation that means it can’t be built on. In a typical southeastern county, for example, you might find that only 5-6% of the land has actually been developed in some way. Of that, only a fraction will be for housing – with the rest for industry, schools, infrastructure, retail etc.
Planning policy generally reinforces those boundaries. So while you might drive down a country lane and see loads of land that looks ripe for development, in fact the majority of it can’t be built on. So most self builders looking for individual plots end up pegged into zones that have had some kind of development already. Add in challenges such as Nimbyism (you can’t build near me!) and planning complications, and opportunities for genuine building land become even more limited. Put that all together, and supply-and-demand means any good plots that do come up in prime locations tend to get sold for high prices – and they’re snapped up fast.