Every developer wants to save money. But there is a big difference between being smart with your money and penny pinching. Sometimes spending less is exactly the right call. Other times, trying to save a few thousand dollars ends up costing far more. On a recent episode of the Property Mastermind Podcast, Bob Andersen and Hilary Saxton worked through where the savings are real and where they are false economies.
Design: never the place to save
For a straightforward project, such as a duplex or three townhouses, Bob is comfortable with a really good building designer or an architect. Architects usually cost more, though some building designers are close in price. For multi-unit work he would not use a draftsman. What he would not do is try to save a few dollars on design, because design is so critical to sales.
The best designers understand buildability. They make a project look good without making it expensive to build, and ideally they have designed for developers rather than for owners building their own home. Some architects get carried away with the look and forget the construction cost.
Bob remembers one developer whose architect used almost no standard-size windows on a fancy duplex. Window factories produce standard sizes off jigs. Non-standard sizes mean far more work for the manufacturer, and the windows alone ended up over $100,000 dearer across the two dwellings. Nobody noticed until the project was costed for construction. Put standard door and window sizes in your design brief, and check the window schedule early.
Small design choices that add up
- Ceiling heights. Going from 2.4 to 2.7 metres costs little. Going from 2.7 to 3 metres costs more: more plaster joins, bigger studs, extra noggings and extra brickwork. It can be worth it on an upmarket product, but make it a decision rather than a default.
- Cantilevers. An upper floor overhanging a driveway means steel, which is expensive, and can create fire separation issues that change the building class of that section.
- Decks over living areas and rooftop gardens. They look good, but waterproofing and falls make them costly.
Consultants: the cheapest is not the criterion
Bob does not choose consultants on price alone. He looks for:
- At least five years in business on their own.
- Referrals from clients they are working with now and from the last 12 months.
- For a town planner, a willingness to go in and argue with council when needed. Ask about the applications that were knocked back and what they did next.
- Timing. Someone $1,000 dearer who delivers four weeks earlier may be the better option.
Fees vary enormously. For a 22-apartment joint venture, Bob collected proposals from seven architects. The most expensive was almost two and a half times the cheapest, for the same job.
Inexperience costs money too. An over-cautious structural engineer can design foundations for a two-storey building that could carry five storeys. Bob once had plans so over-engineered that two builders agreed straight away. He paid that engineer, engaged another, and found someone who regularly re-engineers over-engineered plans. If you cannot read structural drawings yourself, ask an experienced builder or a second engineer.
Surveys: the cheap one often costs more
Ring around asking “how much for a survey?” without a brief and you will get all sorts of prices. The cheap one often leaves out detail. The designer then finds things missing, the surveyor goes back out, you lose at least a week and pay for the extras. The $1,700 survey can end up costing more than the $2,200 one that had everything in it the first time. That is part of doing due diligence on a site properly.
Finishes: save without touching the sale price
This is where sensible savings live, as long as you apply one test: anyone can drop the spec, but what does it do to the sale price?
- On a four-townhouse project, a builder saved Bob $5,000 to $7,000 by swapping the specified timber for an equivalent one. No one could tell the difference.
- On a five-storey apartment block, choosing light fittings that looked and performed the same saved around $12,000.
- On a recent upmarket duplex, removing part of the stonework saved tens of thousands of dollars. The first dwelling sold in about 20 minutes and no buyer asked for more stone.
Go too far, though, and it backfires. On some items, every dollar saved can take two or three dollars off the sale price. Cheap paint, poorly fitted wardrobes and gaps around doors are exactly what buyers notice. Match the finish to the buyer: owner-occupiers walk through, feel and even measure a home, while investors look at the numbers and need harder-wearing finishes.
Builders and variations
Ask a builder to hit a price that is lower than it should be and something has to give, often the quality of the trades. One builder told Bob plainly that at a lower price he would not be using his normal tiler. And every variation costs you. The fix is detailed plans that leave nothing to guesswork, which brings you back to choosing the right designer and the right team.
Staging and marketing
Hilary’s view is that people cannot see what you see unless you show them. Buying a home is emotional, and staging, from simple rental staging to full high-end presentation, helps buyers fall in love with a property. A high-end home presented empty is unlikely to achieve its price.
Your time and your feasibility
Sweeping the site, managing traffic or digging trenches for the plumber to save $50 to $80 an hour is rarely a good trade. A developer’s value is in finding and doing the next deal.
A feasibility is only as good as the due diligence behind it. Something as small as a water main on the other side of the road can add $10,000 to $12,000. Land and construction can make up 80% or more of your costs, so that is where both the real savings and the real waste are. Do not plug in a hoped-for build price to make a deal work. If it costs $1.5 million to build, pencilling in $1.35 million because you hope to find a keen builder is just fooling yourself. It is equally possible to kill a good deal by being overly conservative.
Sometimes the best saving is walking away
Bob and Hilary once walked away from an industrial site after spending $10,000, because the other side’s legal team were out of their depth. Losing that money was, in Bob’s words, a good insurance premium.
The goal is not to build the cheapest development. It is to build the most profitable one. Sometimes that means spending less, and sometimes it means spending more. The skill is knowing the difference.
Hear the full conversation, including more examples from Bob’s projects: listen to episode 275 of the Property Mastermind Podcast. And to see the whole process laid out step by step, join the free Profit with Property Development Masterclass on Saturday 21 November 2026, 9am to 1pm AEDT, live on Zoom with Bob and Hilary.