Cameron Frazer explains how first home buyers can join forces to build a new home in their desired location while maintaining housing affordability.

Transcript:

Finding the right house, in the right street, at the right price, can be a challenge.

Today, we are going to meet some home owners who have taken a different approach.  They have joined forces and finances and developed themselves a dual occupancy.

We hear a lot about the term 'dual occupancy', but what is a dual occupancy?  In essence, it is where you take a standard block of land and you sub divide the block, and you put two houses on it.

The house that we are looking at today is called a duplex.  It's two houses, side by side.  

Well, this process started with my wife and I scouring the property market for months, possibly years actually, and we started to realise it was becoming extremely difficult to buy in the areas that we wanted, to get a stand alone house.

It was just fortunate that Abel and Tanika were looking to build themselves, so it was quite good that we could build together and we would know our neighbours.  It made the partnership a lot easier because we both wanted the same things for our families.

We started looking at what the overal cost per square metre would be and what you are willing to share in terms of that cost is really important.   

For someone considering a project the same, I would probably say get the right people at the start. 

Even though we had a clear idea in our mind what we wanted, there were some certain elements that would have been helpful to have an architect provide some advice on.  For example: natural light is a challenge when you are building a duplex. 

I believe working in partnership with someone you can trust and you know is a great way to get into the market and build the house of your dreams.

A project like this requires trust, commitment and patience.  But the result is that two families have built themselves their Great Australian Dream.