Is it cheaper to build our own Grand Design or buy an existing home now?

Detailed summary

As house prices fall does building new have any appeal?

Ask Property: We are considering building our dream home on the outskirts of our regional town in the hope that it would ultimately be cheaper than buying an existing home. But a few of our friends are warning us that it's not a good idea. Can you explain how the government benefits apply and whether it's a bad time to build right now?

Answer: If you're considering building, then you're braver than me. I love settling into an episode or two of Grand Designs of an evening, but watching the trials and tribulations the couples face along the way has well and truly turned me off building a home.

But if you've got nerves of steel, I can see the appeal. The federal and state governments have been tinkering with policy this year in an effort to make it more financially enticing to build than buy in a move designed to add to the nation's critically low housing stock.

The New Homes Bonus and Local Infrastructure Fund are being provided to states, territories and local councils to unlock land, fund essential services and speed up approvals.

The government has also invested millions in the modular and prefabricated building sector to support precast and modular construction to cut building times by up to 50 per cent.

Obviously, the appeal of building is the fact that you can incorporate all the elements you want into the home, access government grants, build to modern standards and incorporate energy efficiency and sustainability measures that could save you money in the long run.

Building can work, but right now the numbers favour buying, advises Andrew Hadjidemetri, principal mortgage broker and founder at AFMS Group.

As he points out, national home values have fallen for seven consecutive months and sit 6.7 per cent below their March peak, yet construction costs are still rising about 3 per cent a year.

Ask Property: Is a regional buy still a good first step on the property ladder?

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Canberra Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.