Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's why building could be what helps those with a small house-buying budget. Hosted by Frances Cook.
Houses are now so expensive, first-home buyers are considering anything and everything to tip thescales in their favour.
One of the options you can consider is building. There's a financial incentive, for starters.
The KiwiSaver HomeStart grant doubles if you're planning to build. It's $5000 for buying an existing home, and $10,000 if you're building a new one.
You can also have a bit more control over what type of house you buy. Maybe you can keep costs low by going for a smaller house on a smaller parcel of land, instead of the standard three-bedroom Kiwi home.
We discussed what first-home buyers need to know before building, the trend for smaller homes, and the opposite strategy, of building bigger multi-generational homes.
For the episode watch the video podcast above, or listen to just the audio here.
If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.
