Building Insights

Building in a beautiful bushland setting has obvious appeal. The trees, the outlook, the privacy, the morning birdsong. Lovely. But if your block is in a bushfire-prone area, there is one important acronym you need to understand before design and construction begin: BAL. Here is what to know about what is a BAL rating home […]

Building your first home teaches you a lot. Mostly that there are more decisions than expected, and somehow every tap, tile and drawer handle has an opinion. By the time you are building again, you have experience on your side. Still, a second or third home brings fresh questions around lifestyle, budget, design, timing and

Some blocks are wonderfully flat. Others like to make life interesting. If your land slopes, dips or rises in a way that makes a standard home design feel awkward, a split-level layout may be the smarter answer. It can help your home work with the land instead of fighting against it. Here is what to

A project home is chosen from a catalogue and adapted to your block where possible. A custom home starts with your block. In 2026, the cost gap between the two has narrowed significantly. What has not narrowed is the gap on complex or sloping sites, where a project home often cannot be built without expensive

Building a custom home on the Central Coast costs roughly $3,000 to $4,500 per square metre in 2026, before land. A 250 sqm home at the mid-range sits around $750,000 to $1.05 million for the build alone. The figure moves significantly based on site conditions, design complexity, and what your builder has actually included in

A genuine fixed-price custom home build includes everything from the soil test to the letterbox in a single contracted amount. That covers site costs, engineering, council fees, BASIX, the build itself, all selections, services connections, landscaping, and driveway. The only items that can reasonably be left as provisional sums are selections the buyer has not