In 1997 the Palmours finally settled on a builders’ yard in Tunbridge Wells. It was scruffy and by a train track, but it did have permission for two houses. After beating a nursing home to the site — the council preferred the Palmours’ proposed house — they built a spacious, New England-style family home.

They paid £130,000 for the land — but now it would cost considerably more. Land is commonly the biggest single expense that self-builders face. Today, an average plot with planning permission for a decent-sized house goes for about £129,000 in the UK. But it depends where you look, as prices vary from £20,000 to £2m.

The most popular counties for self-build projects are Buckinghamshire, where the average plot price is £294,000; Kent, at £270,000; Devon, at £134,500; Cambridgeshire, at £134,300; and Lancashire, cheapest at £108,600.

There are bargains to be had all over the UK. But the highest concentration of cheap plots can be found in remoter areas, such as the Orkney Islands in Scotland, Fermanagh in Northern Ireland and Glamorgan in Wales. Plot sizes vary widely, but commonly range between an eighth and a quarter of an acre. In densely populated areas, plots are smaller.

Most successful self-builders, such as the Palmours, look for land with what’s called outline planning permission — an agreement in principle by the local authority that a particular plot can be developed for housing. Later the self-builder or developer will need to get the details of the final house designs approved.

“Buying land without planning permission is much riskier,” says Mike Dade, a chartered planning and development surveyor. “There are a few companies selling land — typically fields cut up into lots — with the hope they can be built on in the future. But there are no guarantees. If the land never gets planning permission to build a home on, it could be an expensive vegetable patch.”

The first step to finding appropriate land is to register with estate agents. In many ways it’s the same as buying a house: you need to ring the agents periodically to see if anything new has come on the market. Other common ways of finding land are through auction houses, by word of mouth or in self-build magazines. If you don’t have the time to search yourself, then there are land-finding agencies, such as Plotsearch or Landbank. Many of these offer e-mail or text alerts to notify you of a new plot in your chosen area.

The number of people searching for land appears to be increasing. One agency alone has about 18,000 members on its database actively looking. And already this year Plotsearch, which lists 6,000 plots across the UK, has seen a 5% increase in annual membership on last year. In popular areas, plots sell quickly, sometimes staying on the market only for a day or two.

But demand hasn’t yet outstripped supply. Adam Shaw of Plotsearch believes that when an area becomes popular, more land comes on the market, not less. “When people are aware of plots selling for a premium they tend to free up their land; for example, the small builder with an empty yard or somebody with a large garden,” he says.

Another popular way of building in hot spots is to buy a site with a house and demolish it. Potton and Custom Homes, both firms that help self-builders design and construct houses, estimate that up to 40% of the homes they erect are done this way. Typically, low-density homes, such as 1930s bungalows, and post- and interwar housing built as temporary accommodation, get demolished.

Sally and Jon Jeeves, both management consultants, adopted a scatter-gun approach to finding their plot. They subscribed to a land-finding agency, checked listings in self-build magazines and registered with estate agents and auction houses.

After searching for six months they found their Wiltshire plot at auction in March 2001 — but they didn’t know it at the time.

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