Grand Designs England: Interactive map reveals how many houses have been demolished near YOU – as Brits and celebs cash-in by bulldozing old properties to build their dream home
- EXCLUSIVE: Since 2010 almost 120,000 homes demolished across England
- Experts believe rebuilding your home can be more cost effective than moving
Savy homeowners are demolishing their existing properties to build their own dream houses as they can save up to £100,000 on buying a new-build from a developer, new figures have shown.
Since 2010, almost 120,000 homes have been demolished across England, with many replaced by owners seeking to upgrade without the hassle of moving location.
One of the advantages of building your own home is that it is constructed to your own specifications, to suit your needs especially if the owner is seeking to allow the kitchen/dining area flow into the garden for entertaining when the weather is less inclement.
The authors of the study looked at the cost of new builds, compared with the rebuilding cost of a home and determined in the right location, rebuilding could be far more financially rewarding than moving.
The research was conducted by GetAgent. Cofounder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, told MailOnline: ‘Demolishing your home and starting from scratch may seem like a daunting, expensive task and the cost of doing so will certainly depend on a number of factors such as size, location, professional trade requirements and so on.
‘Not to mention the fact that you will be effectively homeless for a period of time which can cause a great deal of inconvenience.’
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Among those to demolish and rebuild a house are comedian and talkshow host Patrick Kielty and Cat Deeley, who are creating a Beverly Hills-style home in Hampstead, north London.
The couple, who have two sons, Milo, six, and James, four, paid £4.9m for a rundown house in the exclusive suburb after deciding to return to London after several years in Los Angeles.
Kielty, 52, is commuting between London and Dublin where he is presenting the Late Late Show on RTE 1 on Friday nights.
He recently sent a message of hope to the people of Israel and Palestine, recalling how his father was shot dead by the Ulster Freedom Fighters in Northern Ireland. He said the people of Ireland are ‘living our own miracle’ and hoped those in the Middle East ‘your miracle comes soon’.
Patrick Kielty and Cat Deeley are creating a Beverly Hills-style home after returning to Britain from LA and snapping up an abandoned property for nearly £5million
The celebrity couple are bringing a touch of Hollywood glamour to leafy Hampstead in north London where they count Harry Styles among their new neighbours
On New Year’s Day, 2020, TOWIE star Mark Wright shared a video himself driving a massive tracked machine to demolish the £1.3 million house he shares with wife Michelle Keegan.
The couple wanted to knock down the Essex mansion to build their dream home, which includes a large swimming pool, bar and a make-up room.
Authorities granted the couple permission to replace the existing four-bed home with a Georgian-style mansion.
According to the couple’s planning agent: ‘The existing house has been extended several times and is not functional, therefore a new house would be a better use of the site.’
Ripped apart: Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright had their £1.3 million Essex home demolished over the summer, in order to start building their dream home
Former football boss Harry Redknapp, and his wife Sandra are facing their own planning battle after spending £7million on a dated mansion on the exclusive Sandbanks peninsula in Dorset.
The couple want to knock the existing property and replace it with a six-bedroom detached house with a luxury three-storey villa. Although planners have blasted the project as ‘overwhelming’ and ‘disjointned’.
Redknapp’s planning team have altered the design of the property in an effort to appease the local council.
The FA Cup-winning football manager has lived in the Dorset area for at least 26 years, owning several houses in that time on Sandbanks.
Former Premier League manager Harry Redknapp and his wife Sandra are thought to have recently splashed out around £7m on buying a dated waterside home on the exclusive peninsula
If planning permission is granted, the new house in an area of the posh peninsula known as Millionaire’s Row will allow Harry and Sandra (pictured) to enjoy spectacular views over Poole Harbour
The current house on the site which was built in 1963 now looks outdated compared to some of the glass-fronted modernist homes built nearby
The couple who are both aged 76 reportedly paid £500,000 In 1997 for a luxury seaside home in the Liliput suburb of Poole, before selling it for £2.6m.
They bought one of the finest homes on Sandbanks – a mock Tudor mansion overlooking the entrance to the harbour – for £3m in 2001.
They are said to have sold the property for £6.9m in 2015 and moved to a brand new £4m mansion five bedroom beachside property just around the corner.
They reportedly left the modern glass-fronted property on Sandbanks because they wanted more privacy after getting fed up with tourists staring at their home.
The couple moved in 2021 to a new £5m eco-mansion which they had built in a leafy suburb of Poole.
However, ambitious plans to rebuild a dream home do not always work out, as father-of-two Edward Short discovered in the ‘saddest episode of Grand Designs ever’.
He spent 10 years transforming Chesil Cliff House in Croyde, Devon into the ultimate family home.
However, in October 2019, it emerged on the the Channel 4 show that the music industry executive revealed the marathon project had left him on the verge of bankruptcy, and led to the end of his marriage to wife Hazel.
Father-of-two Edward Short, 52, spent a decade building the extraordinary Chesil Cliff House, in Croyde, Devon, with the ambitious project seeing him transform his family’s 1950s home into an art-deco white lighthouse – he said that if the project hadn’t been finished, it would not have been worth it and would have been ‘painful’
When the Grand Designs lighthouse episode aired in 2019, it was unfinished and Edward had put himself in massive debt in order to complete the project, to no avail
In last year’s episode Grand Designs’ presenter Kevin McCloud travelled back to North Devon to follow up on the project, and he was impressed with the art deco lighthouse overlooking the coast
The couple, who lived in a fairly modest house on the clifftop (pictured) before they started the build, explained they wanted a house which would do the site ‘justice’
Edward, left, took on the project with his wife Hazel, but the couple eventually split when construction took a toll on their relationship
According to the data, the average price of a newbuild house increased from £369,713 to £421,005, while the cost of demolishing an existing three bed home and rebuilding it rose from £275,889 to £327,778 between 2022 and 2023. This means a householder could save almost £100,000 in rebuilding rather than moving.
GetAgent’s research found the total number of homes demolished over the past decade in England have fallen 62 per cent – although much of that period was during an ongoing financial crisis followed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
READ MORE: Owner of £7million Grand Designs ‘lighthouse’ home that cost him his marriage is ENGAGED to a nurse who he met online – and the pair plan to wed next year
According to the researchers: ‘This means those looking to purchase a new or larger home are facing an extremely high cost in order to do so.
‘In contrast, the cost of demolishing a house is estimated to sit at £32,000, while rebuild costs for a three bed semi detached home sit at £295,778. Although this cost has increased by 21.3 per cent over the last year (£51,889), it remains significantly cheaper than looking to buy a new-build in the current market at a total of £327,778.
‘This means that homeowners are able to not only increase the potential size of their property, but upgrade it to a brand new home in the process, while still saving a considerable sum of money.’
Mr Short added: ‘While the cost of rebuilding a home has climbed at a similar rate to the price of the average new-build home over the last year, the overall cost of doing so does come in significantly cheaper than the cost of buying new.
‘This is no doubt a contributing factor to the uptick in demolitions over the last year, with many homeowners simply unable to take the next step up the ladder due to the pandemic boom in house prices.’
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