By March, they will be finishing their third new-build home in eight years, which they hope will be worth £1.4m. They have climbed a long way up the property ladder from where they started 10 years ago with a two-bedroom flat in west London, but the path to property riches hasn’t always been easy.

“We’ve made a few mistakes over the years, and we once lost £50,000 on two buy-to-lets that went wrong,” says Holmes, presenter of the Discovery Channel’s Build, Buy or Restore?. “But I learn from my mistakes. We should invest more to make the most of it — not everybody has that attitude to risk but it’s essential if you are going to succeed.”

Holmes and Kirby, an interior designer, are prepared to pay whatever short-term costs will help them achieve their mortgage-free goal. They have been willing to repeatedly put their young family — Freddie, 8, George, 6, and Lily, 3 — in rented accommodation while their next house is being built.

“People hold back from building or renovating because they don’t want to lose security,” says Holmes. “Renting is perceived as a backwards step and they also don’t want the inconvenience of a second move. Worse still, they may have fallen in love with a property and emotion always compromises profits.

“But I think it’s very important to stick to a strategy. Not having to repay a huge loan can liberate your lifestyle — clearing your mortgage is the most tax-efficient investment you can make and in our case we have been able to privately educate our kids from property profits.”

In 1993, Holmes, who is now also editor-in-chief of Homebuilding & Renovating magazine, was renting a two-bedroom, ground-floor flat in Maida Vale, in west London, with Kirby. When their landlady decided to sell, they scraped together a £10,000 deposit and bought it for £110,000, borrowing the rest on a mortgage. Over the next two years they used every spare bit of cash to improve the flat, spending another £10,000 on damp-proofing, a new kitchen, new flooring, a fireplace and redecorating. When they sold it for £156,000 in 1996 they pocketed £36,000, which they considered a fortune.

They put the profit to work straight away and bought a 0.14 acre plot in Yarnton, near Oxford, for £91,000 for their first new-build project in 1997.

Holmes had become convinced that new-build was the best way to make large profits in property development — and proved it when he made £435,000 in just two years.

The key to their success was using their imagination when it came to obtaining planning permission. The plot came with an adjacent field and outline permission for a small two-bedroom house facing the road. By turning the design of the house around by 90 degrees Holmes was able to maximise the size of the property and apply for use of the field as a back garden.

“They gave us permission as long as we signed an agreement never to build on the garden,” says Holmes. “We doubled the value of the plot straight away — even before we laid a brick — and then made sure we built with top-quality materials, real gravel stone for an old farmhouse look, expensive roof tiles and a quality, handmade kitchen. If we had compromised we would have sold the house for a lot less.”

Continued on page two...()Continued from page one

They spent £230,000 on the building project and put it on the market when it was finished and decorated in early 1999. Estate agents valued it variously at between £500,000 (for a quick sale) and £750,000 (which they found hard to believe). They put it on at £625,000, but within days they had started a bidding war. Two weeks later the house sold for £756,000.

Times recommends

• Fall in house sales hits builders, estate agents and mortgage brokers
• Why the property credit crunch favours cash buyers
• The blood-curdling history of Quarrelwood House