The first action of the day did not happen until after 10am (when we think estate agents have uploaded their first batch of new listings), when we checked Rightmove for potential plots. Having looked through all of the listings in our price range, we are now able to do a 24 hour search. Plotfinder is not quite as user friendly, but we checked that as well.
There was nothing in our range available, and as it was so early and we are so eager, our enthusiasm got the better of us and we began the search all over again for renovation projects.
Having done a couple of renovations already we feel we are in safer territory and the search is a bit easier because of that.
There were three properties that caught our attention. Two would need a top floor or side extension added, and the other was a bit of a wreck that left room for a lot of imagination!

The very fact that we searched at all for renovation projects led us to also cover bases with mortgages. We sent an email to a mortgage broker and looked at the price comparison sites for mortgage rates.
We also approached BuildStore, who really are the market leaders with self build mortgages. 
I will let you know how we got on tomorrow

Armed with a list of potential building plots and bungalows, we excitedly sat down to sift through our options today. 

Search Criteria - Profitability
Our first criteria is to ensure there is a significant potential profit in the project. As opposed to a property developer's reasons for this, ours is simply because we do not know what we are doing! If it appears a good proposition, contingencies and potential oversights should be taken care of. This will also hopefully mean that if it doesn't work out for us, there is a get out clause of price reduction and sale.

Search Criteria - Travel time to London
As Tracy works in central London it is important to us that travel time door to door is less than an hour and a half. This enables us to enjoy a very wide search circle.

Search Criteria - Spend as much as possible on the Plot
There are often £100,000 + self build plots, but these are generally hovered up by developers and builders that have access to less expensive resources. As our build will need a package company and maybe even a project manager, we have elected to spend as near to the £250,000 that we have on the plot, to provide as much wriggle room as possible for potential.

Having sifted through the first lot of options, we quickly discovered that most had been on the market for a while. With our limited knowledge, we guessed this was because people that know better than us had rejected them for one reason or another.
We then discovered that there were also a few that provided little potential. Either the building plot appeared too expensive, or there were other issues ( a train line right next to one, another was under the Gatwick flight path, and one had a tiny shared drive).
It looks like it is back to the drawing board tomorrow...

Almost a full day was spent going through the listings. And this is how our process worked – please feel free to tell me if I could have made it easier for myself!

Plotfinder
This is not the most sophisticated search process. There is often very little detail, which means contacting the contacts listed, and many are already included on Rightmove. Most frustratingly, the listings are not updated regularly, and there is no search facility that allows you to call up newly listed plots (as good plots sell very quickly, this should be a major feature).

Southern Property Consultants
I cannot recall how much the original lifetime subscription cost, but it was a good service that listed renovation projects and building plots that no-one else featured. Hence their commission structure – if you find a plot through them, they get a commission. However, anything we saw of interest this time was also featured on Rightmove.

Rightmove
Choose Your Location: London
Search Radius: 40 miles
Property Type: Land
The rest of the categories are obvious, but that is how big our net was, with what quickly proved to be a tiny budget.
There were a few that caught our eye, but most seemed to be in areas we do not want to live, or provided little comfort that a profit would be made. And although it is our intention to live there, it is important to us that there is a financial benefit to what is a major risk for us. With little idea of what we are doing, and all our life’s savings involved, we do not want to take unnecessary risks.

Prime Location
This is similar to Rightmove, with exactly the same properties, but it also features a search phrase facility. We tried “acre”, “in need of” (as in modernisation, renovation, refurbishment), “building plot”, “self build” and “subject to planning”.
These phrases led us to finding two more potentials.

Tomorrow, I will go through what we have found and let you know if any are of use...

In the spirit of detailing every step of our journey, including the mistakes and decisions influenced by a lack of knowledge about what we are doing I will start with the good news that we have found a buyer for our house.
As someone that wouldn't believe it until he held the Lottery cheque in his hand, I should say that we have had sales fall through before, so I won't get too carried away.
Without wishing to labour that point, if it does fall through, I will stop this blog and start again when we find another buyer.
So, moving on from that, the first step is to hunt around for something to buy.

Our plan is to build a house. We have completed three renovations, but have always had the self-build itch, and until it is scratched, I don’t think we will be able to settle.
We have a budget of £250,000 for a building plot, with the plan of raising £200,000 for the build.
Using the advice on this website HERE we tried the Plot finding services. Reluctant to pay, but for the benefit of this blog, I decided on what appears the best one www.plotfinder.co.uk with a £10 month long trial.
Southern Property Consultants is a service I had previously paid for, so I also checked there.
Then it was the turn of Rightmove and Prime Location.