Wouldn’t it be lovely if your house was perfectly suited to the needs of your family? Even when you think you have it good in your current house, there is always something that you would change to accommodate your needs a little bit better. This is because the homes on the market were not built specifically for you and your family and so they are unlikely to correlate perfectly with what you really want from your ideal home.

Of course, if you can build your own home, then you have every opportunity to create the perfect space for your family. You can design the layout of each room in relation to the needs of each family member and you can design communal spaces that suit everyone down to a T.

Timber frame homes offer the most flexibility in design because they are not bound by certain structural limitations like internal weight bearing walls. Timber frame designers are experienced in dealing with self-build projects and they can help you to realise your vision of a home that is tailor made according to the requirements of your loved ones.

Home builders are expressing concern at the moment regarding their ability to deliver the homes required to help ease the pressure surrounding the housing market. The trouble for home builders is that the mortgage market is currently stuck in a rut, preventing people who want to buy homes from getting on the property ladder. Home builders cannot build if buyers cannot buy.

Knight Frank is one of the UK’s leading home builders and it is predicting gloomy times ahead. The firm’s Q4 UK Housing Market Forecast has come up with the hypothesis that average house prices in Britain will drop by around 5% next year. The research also predicts that prices may not recover until 2014.

High inflation has also taken effect, cancelling out any modest growth in average house prices seen in the market. Taking inflation into account, Knight Frank’s figures can be interpreted in a more negative light, perhaps even suggesting that house prices will not reach the peak seen in 2007 until, at worst, 2028.

Naturally, not all areas are affected in the same way. Central London properties may continue to rise in price, but the picture does make unpleasant viewing for the rest of the country.

The use of machinery on site is one of the main expenses of your building project. It is also one of the things that makes construction less than friendly as far as the environment in concerned. It is certainly in your interests as a self-builder to try and limit the amount of time you use heavy machinery in relation to your project. This is possible with timber frame construction.

Perhaps the most important way timber frame construction cuts down on heavy machinery use on site is by cutting down the overall length of time it takes to produce a house. Timber frame homes can be built very quickly as intensive work is done in the planning stages and the frame is produced under factory condition off site.

Once the frame itself has been erected on site, it is a matter of finishing the house off in whichever way you and your designers have chosen. This is quite a speedy process and beyond the delivery of the frame you are unlikely to need to use heavy machinery or vehicles, which means you can cut your fuel and hire costs by a sizeable amount.

Wood is a beautiful material for building with. Wood has always held a very special place for builders because of the way it lays at the heart of carpentry and construction. There is something very fundamental about the role of timber and the way its availability has shaped the progress of civilisations.

Of course, let’s not condemn wood to the history books. Timber still has a very active role to play in the construction industry and modern technology has made it even easier to produce quality homes using wood. High quality timber can be sourced from sustainable forests and this actually means that using timber is more environmentally-friendly than using steel.

The precision of modern computer systems means that specialists now have access to accurate programs to help them design structures that will last for a very long time even despite the fact that timber frame homes can be built so very quickly.

Attractiveness, cost-effectiveness, comfort and practicality have always been the main motives for building out of wood and timber frame construction continues to satisfy these key concerns in the modern construction industry.

When you are building your own home, you must give some thought to any peripheral buildings that you are also planning to have built. Perhaps the building that you are most likely to build alongside the house itself is a standalone garage building.

Garages need to be very spacious because they you are likely to expect them to accommodate more than one car. The more spacious the garage is the better because then it will become a much more useful asset and can act as a shed as well as a place to keep the cars.

Obviously your garage must not contain any obstructions inside because that would defeat the object in terms of storing your cars. No interior walls can interrupt the space in our garage. That is one of the reasons why timber frame construction is handy when you are building a house and garage.

Timber frames allow for large spacious interiors without obstructions or interior walls to house any vehicles you want to accommodate. Timber frame construction is also very aesthetically pleasing which prevents your garage from simply becoming unsightly structure prized only for its functionality.

Although timber frame construction has been used for centuries in some form or another, the building technique has come on leaps and bounds in recent years. Timber frame construction has long been the method of building of choice in certain countries – tellingly it is most often used in colder climates such as Scandinavia and North America – and it is currently enjoying a revival in the UK.

Part of this revival is down to the fact that people recognise the energy-efficient and cost-effective attributes of building with timber frame. However, it is also down to the fact that computerised design programs have significantly improved in recent years. This means that timber frame specialists have access to advanced technology when it comes to producing designs for timber frame homes and other structures.

The precision of design procedures involved in the production of timber frame homes is the key to their success. Accurate design has been a feature of the timber frame tradition for a long time, but nowadays there is the technology to back it up. Powerful design programs have opened all sorts of doors for timber frame uses now and in the future.

People are sometimes dubious about the strength of structures that are built using timber frame construction. It is hard for people to get their heads around the idea that a structure built using a wooden frame can be as strong as a structure built using materials like steel.

Of course, the problem is that people tend to focus on the nature of the materials themselves. Wood is by no means as hard as steel in itself, but that is no reason to suggest that a frame built out of wood is not as strong as a frame built using steel components.

The most important factor in timber frame construction is the way the components of the timber frame are actually put together. This is what determines the strength of the overall structure. Timber frame components are pieced together with incredible precision, using methods of joining that are proven to lend the structure exceptional robustness.

Timber may be significantly more lightweight than steel, but the relationship of the components in design means the structure itself remains strong. Nowadays, advanced computer programs are used to help timber frame construction experts produce designs for structures.

Timber frame construction is not only the ideal building method for houses. Although timber frame houses are wonderful examples of this form of construction at work, it is also possible to use timber frame construction to produce excellent office buildings, shops and public houses.

Commercial buildings have many of the same requirements as houses. However, in many cases, the main issues are increased when it comes to the commercial sector because of the importance of keeping costs in line. Take energy as an example, an office building will use and lose energy all day as opposed to a private home that may see no energy use during the day.

Timber frame construction allows commercial properties to be built very quickly, but it also allows them to be built with a greater focus on energy efficiency. Regulating the office or public houses environment is really important for employees and customers alike.

Timber frame construction often produces very distinctive and attractive places to work which helps to create a livelier atmosphere which rubs off on your clients as well as the people who come to work for you every day.

First time buyers have not enjoyed the best few years in the wake of the recession because it has been such a struggle to secure mortgages for properties they can afford. The mortgage market has really struggled to get off the ground and a lot of sellers have decided to hang on to their properties hoping for a lift rather than selling at a reduced price. This has left first time buyers in limbo.

Home builders are among the firms that have been affected by different aspects of the recession, including this mortgage related issue. That is why some are seeking new ways of injecting a bit of life into the property market so that they too can get on with what they are good at – producing new places to live.

This weekend (October 22nd and 23rd) Persimmon Homes is hosting an event aimed at first time buyers. The First Time Buyer Weekend takes place in Stanground and Longstanton and it is aimed at helping those in need of financial advice.

There is also a 100% mortgage offer in place for those who are really struggling to find a mortgage that allows them to take that very first step on the property ladder.

There are always bound to be regional differences in the housing market. Different parts of the country always perform differently when it comes to activity in the property market. A good example of this in action is the way central London house prices have continued to rise despite most of the rest of the country experiencing reduced house prices.

Some of the latest research into housing market activity in the UK in 2011 has discovered that the property market in the North of England has enjoyed a healthier six months than the south. Halifax conducted the research in order to get a better picture of property market activity across the whole country region by region and found that property sales have slowed down a great deal in the south, while many northern towns have seen an increase in sales.

Sales for the entire country are down on figures for 2010, but it just goes to show that certain areas are experiencing much less difficulty than others. Bury, Leigh, Rugeley and Houghton Le Spring recorded the biggest increases in sales in the first half of 2011 according to the study by Halifax.