She's On The Money - Building The Dream: Jess Shares What She’s Learned (So Far)

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Manifesting home-ownership, but priced out of buying a house? Maybe building your own is the way to go. But where do you even begin? She’s on the Money’s Jessica Ricci joins Bec Syed on the Deep Dive couch to tell us everything she’s learned (so far) about her building journey. After recently going through the preconstruction phase, Jess shares updates around pre-build appointments, budget considerations and just how important it is to read your contracts. We’ll hear about the loan application process, fixed-price building costs, as well as what is (and isn’t) included along the way.  If you’ve ever wondered about the benefits of building versus buying, why it pays to have a broker, or simply want to know what you should know before you start, this episode is for you. GET YOU A MORTGAGE BROKER: Whether you’re applying for a land or building loan, having a broker on your team makes all the difference. Chat to the friendly team at Zella, who’ll act as your loan liaison. Visit zella.com.au for more information. BEFORE YOU BUILD, BUDGET: Scope creep? We don’t know her. Manage every step of your own building journey with free templates at shesonthemoney.com/download-resources. NEW HERE? Join our Facebook Group (Search for: ShesontheMoneyAUS) AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+.And follow us on Instagram @shesonthemoneyaus for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo... and relatable money memes that just get you. Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements (queenacknowledgements.com)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Natasha Bamblett, I'm a proud First Nations woman, and I'm here to acknowledge country. Tii, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yambina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawaman daman imelan, mumabangada boma ininyalan waka, gaunan yakarumja, wutunarana. Hello beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's On The Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,

bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's On The Money. The podcast is here to help you achieve your big money dreams. And we know for so many of you, that's owning your own home. But we are also very aware that it is a goal that is feeling harder and harder to achieve right now.

And the numbers actually back that up. According to Domain, over the last five years, entry-level house prices in Australia have gone up about 68%, while wages have only grown around 21%. So naturally, you all want to know every possible path into the property market. And one of the less talked about ways is building. I'm Bex Eyed, and today I'm not joined by Victoria, but someone who is currently figuring out her own house build at the moment in real time, Jessica Ricci. Hi.

Hi. Welcome to the deep dive couch. Oh my God, fun. It's very comfy. It's very comfy, and that's what people don't realize. It's a very comfy couch, so sometimes it makes us a bit sleepy. So Jess, first of all, I'm so proud of you. Thank you.

You've wanted this for a long time, so you're building a property. You're building a house. Basically, with your bare hands. Catch me out there hammering away. I can see you with your tool belt on. So you've been sharing your house journey with the community from the beginning, and I feel like everyone is a little bit invested in how it's going. So today I'm basically going to ask you the questions the community has been sending in

about your house build so far. Oh, it's so nice that people are so, because I feel like it has, I've been talking about it, originally I wanted to buy, I mean, we've spoken about this many times, people have probably heard the story about, I planned on buying, I couldn't afford it, and there there's all this back and forth and even the process of getting this build done has taken so long the whole thing has been years and years and years and you know people are always checking in and you know before I'd announced that I'd bought land that I was going to build people saying what's happening with the house hun how's it going it just people are so kind to give it

their like attention and thoughts and you know I believe me I have been in the trenches I get it and I I was consuming every piece of content that I could about everything and asking people questions and you know so if this episode can help just one person you know feel a little bit more confident in considering building as a choice then I feel like I've done my job. It actually is sounding like it and I know that you have told me little bits and pieces but I think it's really good to demystify the whole process for everyone so I think we need a quick update because building a house is quite a long process. What's happened so far and where are you actually up to in the process right now? Okay so I'm still in what is called pre-construction so the build has not

actually commenced yet. Okay. This period has been very drawn out because we hit a couple of road bumps. So pre-construction comprises of a few different things. For me, my land was titled before I signed with my builder. So that's something that you may or may not have to wait for. If your land isn't titled, you can't really enter, I don't think, into full pre-construction. It'll depend on your builder. I don't want to make blanket statements, but you don't technically own right so like they can my builder took a look at the lot itself I sent them the information and they checked it for was it in high-risk flood area was in high-risk fire area what's the elevation like to get a rough estimate of what site costs would be for me because that

is something that when you look at house prices online so if you go to any builder website it'll say you can build this house from two hundred thousand dollars yeah you need to add a lot more money onto that because there are a bunch of things that includes like your basic base base model and it also doesn't include your site costs and site costs are things that the builders will have to do to the building site to get it going everything from the cost of fencing to if you need to divert traffic if you're on a main road if you need to level out the block because it's on a huge angle there can be things with pipes underneath or the type of soil that you have there are so many things that factor into site costs. For me personally, I was building in a

relatively new area and they actually, my builder had built the house next door. So they were like, we've got a great gauge on everything because we did all of the surveying for that house already. But that is a big cost and a little bit of time that it takes them to like do all of the checks and things that they need. Pre-construction also includes, or for my builder, it's two pre-build appointments. So your lifestyle appointment or your color appointment, a lot of people call it, where you're picking flooring, tiles, paint, like all the fun things, the fun one, although you spend a lot of money there, or I did. And then your electrical appointment where you go through all of your electrical plans, heating and cooling, a lot more things than I thought were involved in

it originally. So I've done those two appointments. And then after that, they submit everything to the developer for approval, which is where I got a bit hung up. So it's been three months of back and forth because we submitted the facade, which is the front of the house. And so I went in on my color appointment with the lovely girl, sat down, picked all my colors out. And she said, great, perfect. That's what we submit to the developer. And the first time the developer rejected it because it was all one color, it was all white. Is anybody shocked? Absolutely not. And they said, if you refer to your contract, it needs to be two different colors. And I said, well, actually, my contract, it says it needs to be two materials or two colors. And it is two materials. It's

render and what's render render is like the textured looking concrete oh i see so like instead of the brick they put the render over it got you and the wooden boards on the front of the house anyway two materials but i said no worries make it white and gray like who am i to be difficult so they resubmit and then they came back and said white and gray are too similar of colors and i said well they're too completely actually technically white white is a shade firstly not a color but also there were multiple houses in the estate that were all white already plenty that were white and gray and this is where my saga began and so my poor builder or it was actually the girl for my color appointment was going back and forth back and forth with the developer

and eventually I said to her just give me his email you know I think it's gonna be a little bit easier if I just go to them directly which I did and turns out the guy was kind of a douche so I emailed him and said hey like I'm just really not understanding like as per my contract it says xyz you know we've met all four of those criteria like yeah theoretically I only need to have two colors or two materials I've got all four like what more do you want from me and he was like the colors percentage wise are too similar I said okay no worries can you let me know where it discloses the threshold for color differentiation and he did not have an answer for that. Do not mess with Jess. Read your contracts, people. That's all I'm saying. So

there was a lot of back and forth. I spoke to the girl that I bought the land from because I also bought the land from the developer and she was really wonderful and really helpful. Spoke to the guy on my behalf. He refused to change it and was just like, well, it says in my contract that we have final say. And I was like, respectfully, you don't even work for the place that owns the land. Like it's a third party company that it gets sent to, to do the approvals. And I've obviously just gotten what i'm guessing is some old man who just doesn't like people arguing back at some point in the process we also worked out that he was applying the wrong guidelines so like within an estate or within a newer estate they sell in what's called stages so an estate might

be divided up into 30 stages and within each stage there'll be a couple of blocks of land right or a couple of blocks of houses and it's very common for different stages to have different rules applied because when you're first building if it's just a field of paddocks you need to entice people to come so those early stages will often have very lax rules or very you know i mean not a lot of restrictions around color or style or anything as the estate develops and often as they start to develop a style or a taste they will start to overlay more stringent guidelines is that what the color and so yeah so within my contract there was the specification that that it needs to be within a certain color palette so like i couldn't paint it fluorescent yellow if i

wanted to for example crazy certain materials needed to be used certain percentages as well so like no more than 60 of my facade could be any particular material i see when you go to your builder typically they'll have multiple different facade that you can choose from and so if you go okay well I know that I can only have 60% of one particular material I can't pick the facade that is all render or that is all wood or that is all glass because those rules overlay over the top so this guy from this approvals place was applying the incorrect stages guidelines which I very politely pointed out to him and he did not really appreciate that so it just we got to a point where I was digging my heels in. Yeah. And I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I am a little

bit stubborn. And so I was like, who is this man trying to tell me what to do? Like, what do you mean? I'm painting a house. Absolutely. I can't paint a grey and white. Like I've already made a concession. I want it to be all white. Fine. I'll meet you halfway. Like I'll paint it two colours. Yeah. Two neutral colours that meet all of your standards, that fit everything within my contract, that, you know, match all of the houses. There are other houses that are like this. and he just was being really rude and so i ultimately escalated it to like the government like building government thing and within like 24 hours some guy there was like yeah absolutely you can build a great white house approved oh my god at that point were you kind of like

i should have tried for the white and white i was like you know i'll take what i mean take what i can get but also like so many people were saying to me like does it matter like just make it don't listen to them this is it like and i was kind of like guys i'm too deep in it like i've put my I've been really, like, stubborn through to this point. Like, I can't just roll over. And you know what? I'm glad that I did because spending so much money, I feel like I'm entitled.

Yes. It's not like I wanted to paint a giant clown on the front of my house. Totally. I wanted it to be white and grey. Also, it's your home. Yeah. And you are, like, dotting your I's, crossing your T's. I would never second guess anything you say because you have read

that somewhere and you've made sure you've read the right version of the right thing. you know what you're doing and I've cross-checked I've asked people for advice so anyway I feel like I've taken this on a hobby tangent I'm so sorry but what I will say is when I spoke to a few of my friends who have also built they all said that they had had similar experiences at different points in their build where like there had been something they'd wanted and someone had just said no you can't have that and they'd kind of gone oh okay yeah I would just encourage people to make sure that you know yeah what your entitlements are like if I had signed a contract that said

there needs to be X amount of RGB difference in the color basis, whatever it was that he said. Absolutely. It is my responsibility to adhere to that. But sometimes people will just say things to you. And I don't know if it's just me. I don't want to bring gender into it. But sometimes, especially from the tone of the way this man was talking to me, it very much felt like he was kind of little girling me. And you can actually put your foot down and escalate things and do your own due diligence. That's really cool. That is really cool. Thank you. So that's pushed us out three months it's taken three months to do that construction is due to start in the next like two weeks okay that's very exciting that is so exciting i want to quickly ask what does if the land is

titled the hell is that so titled land is when the land has officially been registered with a certificate of title that proves someone legally can own it the boundaries of the land have been established and all those sorts of things so until land is titled it can't be sold on to somebody officially so you can put down your deposit which is what if you were to purchase untitled land you would speak to the developer or the salesperson or whoever you're dealing with put your deposit down the balance of what you owe would not be due until the land is titled because it can't actually officially be yours until that's happened so if it's not titled and you don't own it you also obviously can't build on it so a lot of people will buy in new estates

untitled land. And it is good because you have reserved it effectively. So if I had bought untitled land two years ago and it took two years to title, I would have had two years to keep saving. So it's really appealing, I think, for especially first home buyers, because you can still take advantage of all of your grants and schemes and things like that, like I did, but you have time to save if there's a long titling period. Yes, understood. Whereas the block that I bought was already titled. So as soon as it transferred to me, I had a mortgage. Amazing. So if it doesn't get titled, then you just get your money back, I

assume. I would assume so. I don't think it's very common for it not to title. Like it can delay. That's quite common. Like I've heard of blocks of land titling, pushing out, pushing out, pushing out, which can be hard for people if they've got timelines, you know, if their pre-construction is done, they're ready to go. Maybe they're renting somewhere and they've tried to line it all up. So if your titling pushes out, that can be annoying. If your builder doesn't have fixed price costing as well that can be frustrating because like for me my prices are fixed so great cost of materials and stuff is most likely going to go up with all of the things happening with the world's oil supply etc and transport my costing won't change because my prices are fixed

but if yours weren't that would be something that you would probably be concerned about as well when my partner jess was buying an apartment the she put a deposit down this what i don't like is that like, and I understand there's a reason for it. Someone comes and values it. And if it is worth, in their eyes, less, then the bank will only give you what the valuer says it's worth. And so in this case where there's nothing there, did you get a bank loan and how did they do that? This actually happened to me when we were applying for my loans. We changed the bank that my loan was going to be through because the first bank projected the valuation at lower than it would be and we're like how is that possible because you know what the construction is worth

because i've just signed a contract to pay that cost for construction like that is the market value of that construction yeah that is the market value of land that's from what jack who was my broker said that's very rare very very rare but they do also do evaluation at the end as well so they do evaluation at the start yeah to go oh well we think it's going to be worth xyz typically that would be based on what you're spending it's kind of hard to argue against market value because as I said that's what I'm paying it's not like I've gone to auction and emotionally overspent like yeah I am paying for this to be built and this is what I'm I've signed on to pay but then at the end they'll do another valuation and if they find that it's

not worth what I paid or in their estimation doesn't line up I will be liable for the short full so it's and like this is the thing is i i don't think it's super common and from what i've heard it happened to a friend of mine it was only maybe four or five thousand dollars which in the scheme of things is not the worst but it can be i think especially when you do larger fancier homes and there's more room for those types of things to happen like it is a risk that if the valuation doesn't line up with what you've spent that you need to then make up that money immediately or like I'm honestly not entirely sure but and I mean there would be like you would talk to your broker right so like Jack from Zella did my loan and if that happened to me we would be saying oh

my god like what can we do can we get a loan can we get a personal loan can we increase the mortgage you know with the loan that I got for this build she said okay great we'll just change banks and we'll get it valued by another bank yeah and they valued it you know at the correct amount and it was all fine so it is also like subject to the valuer that you get the bank that you go through Like there's so many things, which I think is where going through a broker is really helpful because like if that does happen to me, the first person I'll be picking up the phone to is Jack and be like, help. I do have more questions in my brain, but I'm going to go through these because maybe

I'm doubling up. So let's start with the community questions. A lot of people are wanting to know the main pros and cons of building versus buying. And how did you land on the decision to build? So I was looking at buying at first. I just, everything kept selling for more than I could afford is the honest truth of it. I think building has worked out really well for me because one of the huge benefits was I got to take advantage of a lot of grants and schemes that I would not have qualified for buying an

established house. The biggest one is the stamp duty exemption, which I've spoken about before. I saved probably $30,000 in stamp duty, which it's because stamp duty is calculated if you're building on the land at the time that you buy it. So they calculated it based on half of my total cost roughly, just the cost of the land. In Victoria at the time, it was capping out at I think $650,000 to fill full exemption up to $700,000 or $750,000 to get a partial exemption and houses were selling for way more than that. So I would have had to pay an additional $30,000 or more just in stamp duty alone. I also got the first home buyer grant, which gave me $10,000 in cash, which gets put towards the property build as well, which is fantastic. You can qualify that

if you build a brand new house. But I think a lot of the builds that are selling these days are established homes that have already been occupied, which wouldn't qualify. So like that's hugely beneficial from a financial perspective. Also just from like a control perspective, like I've picked everything that's going into that house, the floors, the walls, the tiles, all sorts of things. Like I have full control. And while I could have bought an established house and renovated it and I didn't mind the idea of that at all, it is much easier to move into something that is ready or mostly ready. There will still be things that I want to do later on just because of finances, but for the most part, I'll move in and it'll be exactly what I wanted it to be.

That's incredible. That is so fun. Oh my God. You really sold me. I can't wait to have you over for dinner. I know. I'm so excited. Next, we want to know where do you even start if you want to build a house? This actually was one of my questions. I'm kind of like, what's the whole process from thinking about it to now where you are I suppose? So I started with finding my builder because I knew exactly where I wanted to buy land and it was a matter of waiting for that land to become available. If you were buying in a brand new estate like I was talking about earlier and there's lots of untitled blocks you might start there. You might secure your block first and then

find somebody to build it on. But it was also handy because I could then have my builder take a look at that block and there was one block I did look at buying and the builder said oh like there's this big like electrical thing that you can't remove so there will be a section of square meterage that you can't build on or around and so that would mean that you couldn't put a regular floor plan on it because it would butt into where that electrical box was I see which would have been a nightmare so I didn't buy that block so reverse engineering it that way worked really well for me I found my builder through recommendation like five of my friends have built through the builder I'm going through and they all have great houses they've had good

experiences you know word of mouth I think is one of the best options yeah otherwise speak to a lot of people I did speak to other builders and one of the biggest things in boutiques boutiques when building with everyone cares one of the biggest things that was in their favor was the girl that I spoke to I think they're called new homes consultants so like if you go through a display home for example I went through so many display homes from so many builders and when you go through a display home there'll be a consultant there or if you inquire online you'll be connected with a consultant and it was really interesting observing the different ways that different people would treat me because you guys know I'm building this home all by myself my partner's not contributing

I don't have parental or other support like it's 100% on me and some people you know if I went through places with my partner they would defer to my partner or really you know if I would talk about the fact that it was my house and I wanted to do xyz they would go oh you know like and not talked down to me but just the vibe was off do you mean like I don't want to throw anyone under the bus or whatever but some places the vibe was not great whereas I think I inquired online I think I got connected with the girl I spoke to via the internet first and then she met me to take me through some things and she was absolutely brilliant I was kind of like amazing if my experience with her is reflective of the experience I will have building I'm over the moon because she

really went above and beyond she helped me render up changes I wanted to make to the floor plan she I spoke to her for almost a year I reckon because I was wow because you know I was gonna buy a block and then the block wasn't right and then there was this and then there was that yeah and I would not have blamed her at all if she'd given up on me because like she's not making if I haven't signed a contract she's not making any money yeah off me anyway she was really really fantastic and so between my experience with her and my you know the fact that I had had friends with this builder as well. I was like, that's a done deal for me. But if you're looking for yourself, I would say Google, look at reviews, take reviews with a grain of salt, because I

think especially in construction, people who leave reviews are people who've had bad experiences, which is kind of why I want to sing this woman's praises. It's like, she was brilliant. After I signed my initial contract, I've been handed, like it goes to another stage, you get a new person. That person has been brilliant. People can have bad days and I don't want to put it on the people who are representing companies. Like it's not the be all end all but I think that my initial conversation my initial vibe check I guess with that girl has proven to be really good so far if anyone wants to build with I don't have anyone out there is specifically considering building with boutique but if you are and you

want someone I would highly highly recommend it wow okay I don't want to put her email in the show notes because I need to ask her if that's okay but maybe like if you are let me know and I can message you to her or like connect you guys somehow because she's she's brilliant she made the experience honestly so positive and I just think people need to be given their flowers you know yeah absolutely that's really lovely that's really lovely and it's really good to know if you don't go with boutique or you are wanting to like have a look reddit's also a really good option yeah a hundred percent real life real people actual people forums talking about their experiences there's often facebook groups too like there's a facebook group for people who

are building with boutique where people talk about like what they're doing yeah so look at whatever builder you're building with and see if there's facebook groups for them I did ask this before but someone else wants to know this is why I should read this thing first I'm so sorry when it comes to loan process how is it different to buying a house so I have two separate loans so I have a loan for the land and a loan for the build as soon as my land settled I started paying the mortgage because it was already titled so yeah I have an existing mortgage that I am paying right now which is my full land mortgage with construction you pay it in stages I think it's three stages for my builder. So when they pour the slab, I'll start paying a portion. And then I don't know

what the next two stages are, but at two other points. So by the end of construction, I'll be paying my full mortgage amount across both. Whereas if you just purchase a house, you just have typically one loan. Once the property settles, you start paying your full mortgage immediately. And that's kind of that. Do you feel like the whole price of the whole thing is roughly the same as buying a house or is it becoming more expensive than that? I think for me, it's probably been a little bit more affordable. I got a really good price on the land because I bought it directly from the developer. Whereas if you were to buy land in that area now through like a real estate agent, for example, a block exactly the same size and

shape as mine down the street went up for sale a couple of weeks after I bought mine through a real estate agent, not through the developer. And that was like $30,000 dearer than what I paid. So I got really lucky with that. I think the prices are probably comparable to what I was looking at spending but I'm getting more for that because I didn't pay that $30,000 plus in stamp duty yes and I spent a lot of money transparently at my color appointment so like I made a whole YouTube video about this I spent like almost $40,000 on like upgrading various things which obviously I didn't have to do and if you're building you absolutely don't have to do that it was just me going oh like I'm building my you know a dream house like what can

I do? How can I make it mine? So like, I kind of went really in depth into that in that video. So I won't repeat myself here, but yes, I think that I paid because I had a set budget too, right? So like with, you know, all of my upgrades and stuff, I could have done more, but like you hit a point where you're like, well, I've spent all of my budget. And so I would have spent that amount, whether it was on the build or whether it was on an established house. But I think the difference is I'm getting a lot more for my money building. I guess maybe this is more of a bank question, But, like, is it possible at all to be, like, approved for a loan for land and then the next, like, one, two, three stages not be approved for those? For the build?

For the build. Like, you know how you're saying, like, right now you're paying a mortgage and then at the end you'll be paying a full mortgage. But do they all kind of link up? Is the bank, like, kind of promising that they will give you a loan for the rest of them? So, like, I've been approved for my loan for the build. They review all of your, like, contracts. that's when they do that valuation and they say, oh, well, we think the house is going to be worth about X, Y, Z. Based on that, they're willing to loan you X, Y, Z amount. For the land as well?

For both. Yeah. But it's separate. So like I have a mortgage on the land. I'm already paying my mortgage off. For the build itself, that loan is approved, signed off. They'll start to release the funds at the appropriate stages throughout the build. So I have the loan, but I'm not paying any money on that mortgage yet because we haven't hit the first stage of construction. Okay. Amazing. Have you learned anything about these types of loans that might be a great tip to pass on to the community? I think the thing that I was mentioning earlier about how it can be valued at less than what it is, especially in the pre-construction phase. I was so taken aback when I was told that because I said, how can you argue that it's not worth that

because I am physically paying that? That is what the build costs. It's not, as I was saying before when you go to auction like things can sell and that's what I was seeing is I feel like there was a lot of emotional buying at the time that I was looking to buy it was a seller's market and so things were selling for much more than what I felt like they were truly worth sure but when you're building like this is what it's worth because that's what I'm paying to do it like totally you know so that really took me aback I think also being aware of the fact that you may have a shortfall at the end as well have a buffer and have a buffer going into it for just various because there are so many things that are not in that initial costing online you know

even your driveway is not included in your build price you can add it on but it's more affordable at least for me to do it have someone do it afterwards it's like i'll still have to pay between 10 and 20 000 to do like the driveway and the concreting for the like you know around the perimeter of the house you need to buy a letterbox you know things like that that's exciting yeah but and it is fun but you go it's not just even you go through your color appointment you go okay well i've added all these things on so like the house let's say cost 200 000 now it costs 250 000 because i've added all these things on and then you go your electrical appointment you're okay well now it's 260 000 and then you're okay 260 000 no worries like it's just at the end of my budget

but I can make it work because then there are additional fees that you have to pay for those other things. Or I had to pay my first rates. I don't live in the house yet, but I've had a rates notice. Wow. So it's like, there are lots of little additional costs that pop up. And so I think when looking at everything, do not spend to the very nth degree that you can, unless you are confident that you can make it up. Because I have a shortfall that I'm making up and that's why I'm working a second job, which I'm fine with, but I don't necessarily know that everyone's in a position where they can do that. Totally. And I guess like also keeping in mind that possibly for years you'll be paying two things because you don't have a house that you're able to live in yet

and you're maybe renting or maybe like. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I'm paying rent and a mortgage at the same time. Totally. Yeah. Crazy. Okay. Let's jump to a really quick break. Don't go anywhere guys, because after the break, Jess is going to get into the nitty gritty of building a house. Welcome back. Jess, you're actually in the middle of this process. What things about building a house genuinely have surprised you I think just the costs of everything yeah I spoke about this again in the video that I filmed where I was talking about I did a video for each appointment my color on my electrical and there are so many things that I just hadn't given a single thought to so for my electrical appointment for example I went in and my electrical appointment

was second so I'd spent a lot of money at my color appointment I was like okay I need to spend the bare minimum at this appointment sure and so i went in and they were like okay well you have to upgrade your power phase thing to like a higher version and that's going to cost you two thousand dollars i was like is there a way around that and they're like no and i was like okay cool so like guess we're doing that totally you pick everything right and there are so many you pick what hinges go in your house you pick yeah where your lights go and so we sat down to do the lighting plan And she said, okay, how many lights do you want in the bedroom, two or four? And I was like, ah.

And she goes, I think you could probably get away with two. It just depends how much you want. And you're paying per light, keep in mind. Right, okay. So, like, for me, going into this appointment, I was budget conscious. I'm like, we're doing as little as we have to do, right? Yeah. And so I was like, oh, I think two would be fine.

I was trying to remember how many lights are in my current bedroom. Couldn't tell you. How many times have I looked at the ceiling? No idea how many lights. It turns out there were, in fact, four dimmed down lights or something. Because, like, I'm thinking, like, there's one big one in a room or there's – I guess, yeah, so we're doing down lights. Okay.

So we'll have two. Okay. And, I mean, again, I guess, like, really do you need more than one light? Probably not. Put a lamp in if you need it. Well, and that's – yeah, and these are all the things, right, is, you know, there's a standard plan. It's like the girl who ran my appointment was like, okay,

like we would normally recommend X amount of lights throughout the house. And if you want to add more or move them, you can. But I'd never thought about where lights were going or how many were in a room. Yeah. like even that you're like you know what you're at like one light probably would do the job but you know there are all these things that you just don't think about yeah I wish that I had been more prepared my color appointment was really overwhelming and I had a really solid plan going in I thought I'd pretty much picked everything and then I sat in that chair and

just got so overwhelmed and I was by myself because my partner had work and so it was just a lot and I think as much as you can do to prepare as much inspo as you can have inspo photos or like going through you know the display homes or whatever for those appointments having all of that will be really helpful to you especially because you most people will probably be like me and you get to a point where you're going okay well I can't afford everything obviously so I have to figure out what I'm prioritizing yeah and so that then becomes a big push and pull of like well what could i do later do i you know my father-in-law's an electrician so he can come and help me out with that or one of my friends is a tradie so he can probably help me do this so like

i can do that after the build or i want to eventually convert to fully electric if i can but to do that through the builder was really expensive and somebody told me that that would be a lot more affordable to do myself down the track so it's like great well that can wait but it's having an idea of what these things are that you want and what is most important to you and what they're going to cost yeah boutique have this portal it's called a boat and you can see every single thing that you can pick from ahead of time which is amazing that's great and so that's what i'd gone through to get my idea of what i wanted but a lot of things are calculated based on square meterage like your floors your tiles your render your paint how much that's going to

cost is going to depend on how much space you're covering yeah so you don't actually know what that cost is going to be until you i mean maybe i could do the math but i actually don't think i had the dimensions to be able to work it out so I sat down they're like yeah your floors will be fifteen thousand dollars correct so it's like those things and like obviously I could then choose do I want to downgrade or do what do I want to do but just go in with as clear of a picture as you can of what you want it to look like and what that's going to cost you because I sat there for hours it was a five-hour appointment and I ummed and I ah'd and I was like do I do it don't I do it how much money like and that's how I found myself in that like that position where I was like

you know what I know I have a shortfall and to me it is worth it to have what I want and to work another job to make up the difference also five hours is that normal for them or that's the standard appointment time yeah really because you're there's they go through every everything in a house back like every door handle yeah tile every skirting board different types of skirting boards do you want a regular cornice or a square set cornice like there are things that you wouldn't ever consider. There's hundreds of line items that you sit with this person and you pick every single one of them. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. Even like the, like that white box around your light switch is like, oh my God, that is crazy. And the types of light switches. Do you

want a flick button? Do you want a push button? Do you want a dimmer? Oh God, guys, this is such a long episode. I'm so sorry. Something you have to think about is every light, like think about when you turn on a light switch and this is probably more applicable to downlights than like a single light in a room like what you were talking about before sure but if you turn a light switch how many lights turns on at once oh and where do those light switches go so like for me in my house that i live in right now the front hallway there's a switch for that by the front door yep and there's a switch for that by the kitchen yep and so you can turn it off and on at either end that's because somebody in their lighting plan has decided well these lights will

be wired to this switch yes you have to figure out what where every light is wired to so you have to almost like grid your house and go okay well if I turn this switch on yeah I want all the lounge room lights turn on and because my house and I think a lot of modern builds are open plan that's where it's more applicable right you're okay well would I want all of these lights to switch on how many of the lights would switch on do I need more than one like location for that switch like oh my god and that's what my brain really struggled with because I felt like that's such a permanent decision I know and I don't live there so I don't you mean like it might be that Like my friends who have kids, their lounges split into two

or their old house, their lounges were split into two so that they could turn one set of lights off and have it be like dim for the baby while they're putting the baby down. But if all the switches went to one place, that wouldn't be an option. And like again, you can do lamps and whatever and that's a whole thing. But it's just, again, like something else that I go, oh my God, I've never given a thought to what switch turns on what light. Sounds really fun.

But I imagine after like five hours, you're like, I don't care. I don't care anymore yeah how do you decide what to splurge on I tried to prioritize the things that would be hard to change down the track so from the very beginning I knew I wanted high ceilings and you can raise the ceiling but it's very expensive to do it right so I was like that's something I will pay for up front a lot of my like tiling and stuff I was like I'm gonna buy the nicer tile because I know that that is hard if I have to uninstall and then reinstall something down the track yeah I wired for a lot of electrical points but didn't put things in so like for a security system for example my builder only offered one system that you could have and I

didn't want to be boxed into one I wanted to be able to choose whatever system I liked and so I had them wire all the points for the cameras but I will have probably my father-in-law come and wire them in after yeah okay the other thing that I will splurge on I haven't yet is my appliances So everything that I own is secondhand. My fridge, I'm pretty sure, is as old as I am. My washing machine. Have you heard the TikTok I posted of the sound that my washing machine makes? I don't think I have.

Oh, my God. I'll play it for you. Please. My washing machine sounds like it's going to take off to space. And I'm just hoping and praying that it lasts until I move into the new house. Yeah. But I want to invest in appliances. Yes.

Because I'm in a permanent space. And that's always been my thing is like every piece of furniture that I own was secondhand. like my bedside tables I bought from Target when I moved out of home a decade ago and they're kind of falling apart but I haven't replaced them because I was like when you move from space to space house to house yeah you never know if the things you have are gonna fit or match or whatever whereas now that I'm moving into this home it's feeling like permanent and so I want to invest in things and I want to buy like nicer furniture I want to buy a fridge that dispenses water the peak of richness like you know things like that and so that's something I really want to do and

I will invest in again probably down the track a little bit because yeah money is money and you've got to be budget conscious but I think the things that are hard to change or the things that you will use a lot doing like I use totally our washing machine every like two or three days so like to me it feels worth investing in something like that I want to upgrade our door handles and I'll invest in something good quality for that because how many times do you touch door handle in a day yeah and I try to save money by finding DIY options like we haven't done our laundry at all because I ran out of money so we have a trough and a sink and that's it no cupboards no nothing okay but I knew that so many places do really fantastic like DIY options

like Bunnings has flat packs Ikea has flat packs yes you know Victoria did hers I know that Freedom do like lots of places offer options for you to do it yourself and so my plan is to do it myself a little bit down the track when I've got a little bit more money I want to fit out our wardrobes our wardrobes are the most basic option that were available yeah I was like they only need to be basic for now and then I can self-fit it out later on so I tried to look at what was I capable of doing totally or what products are out there that would assist me in creating what I want at like a more accessible price point and focused on spending on the things that I couldn't do or that it would be more costly for me to do later on so with the laundry is it like one of those would you call it

a European laundry is that why you're able to like kind of get a flat pack like is it like in the wall or is it a room? So it's like a walk-in laundry room. Oh I see. Like not very big like a meter or two wide by a meter or two long. What part of that are you doing yourself? So I'll put all the cabinetry in. So right now all that is going in is literally a trough, a stand, a sink and a tap and there's nothing else in the room. Yeah so like I want to have a bench top that will run over where hopefully one day I will have a washer and dryer. Yes. I want to have cabinetry up the top um things like that because you pay for every single thing like that like that's not a standard thing totally same in bathrooms like i would love to put medicine cabinets instead of

just flat mirrors yes that's something that i'll do down the track so i wonder if someone is listening to this and thinking about building their first home what's the biggest thing you'd want them to know before they start that's such a good question i think know that the price online is not even remotely close to the cost you'll pay because i remember i would i would go oh my god it's only $190,000 to build a house. And then I would plug that into a mortgage calculator online and be like, oh, I could do that. I could build two of those. Like it's so affordable. Not even close. So I think you need to add, I would say it was like 40% onto whatever you're looking at between depending on you and like how likely you are to want to upgrade things. Like some people

want to make their garage bigger or some people, you know, some people are really happy with the bare minimum and you absolutely can do it really affordably but then don't forget to factor in your driveway your concreting your rates like all those sorts of things add I would say probably at least yeah 30 to 40 percent better to have a buffer I totally tend to not that's not bad though and then talk yeah talk to your broker about it so what are my options what are my maximums what does that look like like what things do I do need to be aware of I think having someone who can help you with that is so huge and yeah just know that you probably unless you're rich you're gonna have to make concessions you're gonna have to find you're gonna have to give up on things you're going

to have to do them yourself or do them down the track or they're not going to be exactly what you want and know that that is okay especially if it's your first home totally and as you're saying like you can you can polish a turd in this case you can like like the appliances the furniture this that like lamps like you really can like have like a blank room with the bare minimum in it i assume and fill it with things that are homely and cozy and yeah my like 30 year old fridge is going to be in my brand new house probably for at least six months before i can afford to i mean and that's fine like all my facebook marketplace furniture it's fine like you know there's two things as well exactly don't overextend yourself no i'm i'm truly confused and you don't obviously

I don't have to give away the price of anything, but would it be reasonable to say if you do see a package like this, it's like house and land for $190,000, would it be reasonable to say that could come to like $600,000? I don't think you would see house and land for $190,000. Oh, okay. So when I use the example of $190,000, that's for just a build. Oh, not the land? Yeah, just the house.

Okay, got you, got you, got you. That's really cheap. And I know that you're saying like add, but even if it came to $500,000 and land is like a couple hundred thousand? It can be over $1,000 per square meter, but it depends where are you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I understand. It's so dependent on what location you're looking in.

Are you close to the beach? Are you close to a city? It's really variable. But I'm like, that sounds so much more affordable than like a $1 million tiny house in Brunswick. I'm like, you know. And this is building in the suburbs. I'm building in the suburbs. So my build will be, I actually don't know the final number.

I have a YouTube video coming. I'm so sorry, I need to do the math, but it'll be less than $800,000 for sure. Wow, that is really, really exciting. So I think it's a really good place to leave it. Do you have anything that you wanted to add at all? No, I feel like I rambled for ages. No, it's great. I'm so sorry.

No, my God, it's so interesting. I know that I do have more questions too, and if you guys do as well, feel free to reach out to myself or Jess. So thanks so much, everyone, for sending your questions in, and thank you so much, Jess, for letting us put you in the hot seat today. Sometimes the best way to learn about things is asking the person who's going through it currently. Absolutely.

I'll keep you guys updated. I'm sure this is not the last shoe healer of it. I'm sure I'll have a rant for you all soon. Please, please, please. And if you have a friend who is trying to get into the property market, make sure you share this episode with them. There is no gatekeeping at She's On The Money.

And of course, don't forget to follow us so you never miss an episode. We will see you guys again on Friday. Bye, guys. Bye. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances.

She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa, P-T-Y-L-T-D-A-B-N-321-649-27708

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