Wednesday 1 March 2017

Economic Myths: "Party-loving couple build their OWN ultra-modern home for just £100,000"

From The Daily Mail:

* Derek Wright and Christine Burford wanted to retire in Kent from Huddersfield
* They could not afford the house prices so bought a plot of land for £160,000
* Mr Wright, 71, then set to work building a three-bed home, despite no experience
* Couple are now living in a modern, personalised home which cost £108,000

... despite a series of hiccups along the way, the couple ended up with a personalised, ultra-modern home, which they say would have cost them £200,000 more if bought ready-built from an estate agent.


Fuck off, it did NOT cost £108,000, it cost £268,000. Can these people not add up?

If a ready made home would have cost £308,000 then their £40,000 saving is basically their wages/profit for the effort they put in building it and the risk they took with their own cash. In the light of events, that's not much of a reward. And they saved a fair bit of SDLT, I suppose.

Land prices, truly the elephant in the room, people just refuse to mention the topic to the extent of pretending it doesn't exist.

4 comments:

Lola said...

"shakes head in wonderment"

Bayard said...

Also, of course, no mention that it wasn't that long ago that you could have bought the plot and built the house on it for £160,000.

Dinero said...

Looking a Zoopla its £450K but I see your point.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, you and me both.

B, that's the magic of deregulation.

D, I was too lazy to work out where the house is and work out what the average price was, so I based my assumptions on those in the article. The crazy assumption being that the cost of the plot is entirely irrelevant and not part of the cost of the house.