3 ways to build a home on a budget in 2025

Building a new home in 2025 with interest rates rising and Building cost escalating is a challenge. But a challenge is no reason not to do something that’s going to change the way you and your family live your life and maybe one of the best things that you ever invest in.

Every week I work with clients to help them navigate what to look for when building a new home and how to keep cost down, so I wanted to share three scrappy tips on how to save some money when building a home in 2025:

3 Ways to Help Save Money When Building a New Home in Australia

1. Learn What Links to Extra Costs

As soon as you sign that building contract, the process of building becomes a bit like an ecosystem. If you change one thing, it will consequentially change something else and so forth.

Some repercussions can be minor, and some can really blow the budget or timeframe that you need your house to be built in.

So to save money, you want to know exactly what will cost extra during the build. Common variations that come up when building include:

• Delay costs due to council building approval delays

• Unavailable materials and alternatives being more expensive

• Delays in obtaining finance

The list of what causes variations is specific to each individual building contract. The number one way to avoid extra costs is to know exactly what causes them, then working proactively to avoid them.

2. Track Every Single Cost

The thing about building is that a lot of conversations happen verbally and in a million different emails. This sometimes leads to costs flying around without any real consolidation of what the overall cost of building is.

For any savvy budgeters out there, I'm sure you would agree that you can't save until you know exactly what you're spending.

So a tip to save money when building is to create a system where you can track every single cost as it comes up.

I have, of course, built a system designed to do this. It's called the Build & Budget HUB, and it's a Notion template that lets you track every cost on your build from start to finish in a live phone & desktop template. It's a game changer for saving and avoiding overwhelm 🙌🏼

3. If You Want to DIY Something, Let Your Builder Know Before You Sign the Contract

Doing something yourself when building a new home is awesome and a great way to save money. But to actually see the benefits of that cost saving, you need to remove it from the build as soon as possible.

For example, if you want to design your own walk-in wardrobe, the builder will already have standard shelving and rails which they will start ordering early on and then install as the build progresses. If you don't tell the builder that you want to do it yourself, you'll end up having to pull that joinery out, leaving a great big mess on your brand-new walls. That's really hard to fix up without replastering (extra costs no one wants).

But if you let your builder know from the start not to include wardrobe joinery, you'll get the benefit of a credit and your builder will leave you nice shiny walls for you to come in and do your own install later.

Building Contract Reviews for New Home Builds & Renovations

If you want to learn more about what’s in your Building Contract so you can Sign with Confidence, check out my Building Contract Health Checks.

I support clients to learn about the details of their HIA and Master Builders Home Building contracts from all states in Australia, including Victoria, ACT, Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania, WA, and the Northern Territory.

My Building Contract reviews are designed for people who want to understand their contract better before they sign.

If you're a person like me who wants to dive into the details, wants education on what makes a good contract, and what to look out for - then you're a great match for a Building Contract Review.

Ultimately, I want you to walk away from our session with confidence to proceed with signing your contract.

We go through any of your questions like how to avoid delays, what to watch out for and how to keep costs within your budget.

Happy building! 💚

Thanks for reading and catch you on my next post :)

Annelyse