Yorkshire developer Beal blazing a trail by offering buyers a chance to bespoke their home for free

Yet creating choice and allowing buyers to personalise their property when volume building is not impossible.

Yorkshire developer Beal Homes, an award-winning family-run firm based in Hessle, near Hull, in East Yorkshire, has already proved it many times over.

It has just set the bar even higher after investing in a new, state-of-the-art, 5,000 sq ft Design Lounge, which is part of its newly-built headquarters.

Open seven days a week, it’s here where buyers can bespoke their homes with a dizzying array of choice and the service applies to all properties from the smallest to largest.

There’s no extra cost either unless you opt for a much higher end product or decide to drastically alter the layout.

The personalisation for all begins with an initial pre-selections meeting with a Beal designer when buyers can discuss their home’s internal layout, which might include moving doors and walls and turning an integral garage into a room.

You can also choose colour schemes because having your walls emulsioned in colours of your choice is all part of the service.

Next is a day in the Design Lounge, where buyers can style their property room by room, again at no extra cost unless they want to upgrade.

The choices are brought to me to life on 3D digital screens so you can see what each room would look like.

The Design Lounge has set areas for each room, along with samples of tiles, carpets, doors, lighting and much more, right down to the door furniture and bathroom fittings.

Some customers go for choices that are included in the house price and others will spend £30,000 on upgrades, according to Sue Waudby, Beal Sales and Marketing Director, who adds: “It’s all about personalisation.”

The standard, no extra charge, options are impressive and include fitted flooring throughout the property.

The kitchens are stylish with a huge selection of cabinetry in different designs and colours, along with an island and a Neff oven.

There’s also a selection of internal doors, while the bathrooms boast off the floor loos and chrome fittings unless you want to upgrade to fashionable black.

Outside, all properties have a turfed garden.

Paid for optional extras include a chimney breast with inset fire, fitted wardrobes and a garden office.

At the end of the day and a complimentary lunch, buyers get a CAD drawing of their scheme and can pose for photos against an Instagram- friendly backdrop featuring the samples they chose before having a digital tour of their home with their choices in place.

Tissues are at the ready as this is the time when some buyers are so overwhelmed by the result, they cry with joy.

Sue Waudby says: “The Design Lounge experience is a major highlight of the home buying journey and customers love it.”

While a Beal property in general may cost slightly more than an average no frills, homogenised home, people are more than happy to pay a little more for the personalisation and quality construction by the firm’s own team, which includes 80 skilled craftsmen.

Richard Beal says: “The amount of bespoke work we do to each house means our site managers have to be something special but the extra effort we put in is worth it because people recommend us and they come back.

“We have some people who are on their fourth and fifth Beal home.”

He adds: “Our houses also hold their value because they are so well built and designed, much more so than the average new build.

“We use clay bricks and clay roof pantiles as opposed to concrete ones and we have porches and chimneys as standard. We could save £1,000 per home if we cut that specification but we wouldn’t because quality and the choices we offer as standard make us stand out.”

The Design Lounge is the jewel in the crown of Beal’s newly-opened head office in Hessle. The 19,000 sq ft building is open all week and is more five star hotel than business HQ with the aforementioned Design Lounge on the ground floor, along with a marketing suite and boardroom.

The first floor is best compared to an enormous luxury penthouse and is where Beal’s office based staff work from. It is an open-plan space with a trendy coffee bar, along with an outdoor terrace and a communal area with living walls featuring real plants that purify the air

The business was started 55 years ago by Richard’s father and uncle, John and Raymond Beal Beal. Richard is now CEO and has pushed the firm forward. His latest mission is to branch out to West Yorkshire.

“Watch this space. What we have amounts to a new concept for the UK housebuilding industry.

Visit. www.beal-homes.co.uk/your-bespoke-home.