Building a House for Under $150k (With Zero Experience!) 🤞

We've been wanting to purchase our own home for years now, but property prices kept running away from us. 📈

We would love to own our own home, but we don't want to spend a fortune purchasing an existing property - so we've decided to build our own! 🏠

We've purchased land on Russell Island in QLD for under $50,000, and will attempt to build our own small three bedroom home for $100,000 - $150,000. It would be a dream for us to own our own home, a home we can say we've built ourselves. We have practically zero building experience, so we expect this to be a huge challenge.

We want to share everything we learn with you incase you also dream of owning your own home - a dream that for many of us feels unrealistic and out of reach. Follow along on our journey if you like, as we see if we can make our dream of home ownership a reality 🤞🤞🤞

If you have any questions about owner building or if there is anything in particular you would like us to cover, please leave us a comment and we will do our best! And if you're doing your own owner build and want to share your story or some tips / advice with us with us, please feel free!

⏱️ Timestamps:
0:00 - The Goal: Building a House for $150k
1:16 - Why we are building (The Housing Crisis)
3:08 - The Problem with the "Owner Builder Course"
4:10 - Council vs. Private Certifiers (Who you actually need)
7:05 - The Certifier Cost Shock ($6k vs $3k)
9:40 - The "Landslide Overlay" Surprise 11:15 -
The $15,000 Mistake (Don't do this!)
13:50 - Our Advice for New Owner Builders

Disclaimer: I am not a professional builder - I am an owner builder. This video is for entertainment and educational purposes, documenting my personal journey. Always consult with local professionals and your council for your specific project.

#ownerbuilder #kithome #costtobuild

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Over the past few months, we've learnt so much about the owner building planning process in QLD. We've made some costly planning errors that we wish we could have avoided, and we hope you can avoid too. Here are the planning steps we would take (in order), were we to start our build again:

1. Before buying your land - check the overlays. Overlays such as environmental protection, bushfire or landslide can increase your build cost dramatically. Some overlays will require extra planning documentation or assessment by engineers, and some (such as bushfire) even require you to use more expensive building materials. Make sure you check which overlays apply to your block of land before making the important decision to purchase.
2. Apply for the owner builder permit early. It takes an average of 4 weeks for the QBCC to grant you an owner builder permit in QLD. It will take you some time to estimate your build costs and submit the application, so make sure you finish this early before progressing with further planning. Your certifier won't grant you permission to build without it.
3. Select a good building certifier to work with. In QLD, the certifier is the person that guides you through the build process. They are the one that ensures you build your home up to standard, and are responsible for approving your build and the final inspection. The certifier will be able to guide you on what documentation is required for your build, and every build is slightly different. Starting this process early is important!

We've also highlighted the stages of the build that need to be inspected when your owner building in the video.