Building your Forever Home in Hobart
Hobart is a city of contrasts — Georgian sandstone and sharp contemporary architecture, sheltered valleys and exposed ridgelines with views to kunanyi / Mount Wellington and the Derwent. Building well here means understanding the city’s heritage overlays, its steep sites, and a climate that rewards genuine thermal performance.
As Passive House-certified builders, we craft homes for the Hobart climate that stay warm through the southern winter and comfortable year-round — without the energy bills. From Sandy Bay and Battery Point to the eastern shore, we deliver homes that respect their setting and perform for decades.
Built in Hobart — including the GreenSmart Home of the Year
The strongest proof in the South: Bluebush, a certified Passive House at Blackmans Bay named 2026 HIA Australian GreenSmart Home of the Year — the highest national honour in the country’s sustainability program — and independently verified at 10 kWh/m²·yr heating demand and 0.5 air changes per hour. One of Tasmania’s first certified Passive House homes, built by Tasmania’s passive house experts.
Around it, a genuine southern portfolio: Verndene at Sandy Bay, The Curve and Waverley at Bellerive on the eastern shore — The Curve holding HIA Tasmania’s Bathroom of the Year for 2025 — Howden south of the city, and the Margate Medical commercial build at Margate. Further south again, Captains Quarters and Lunalon are under construction on Bruny Island. From the river suburbs to the channel, we’ve built here.
What building in the South actually involves
- Steep and view-corridor sites — Hobart’s best blocks are rarely flat; structure, access and retaining are priced into your 48-hour feasibility from day one — see the full cost to build in Hobart
- Heritage overlays — Battery Point to South Hobart, sensitive approvals shape design and program; we plan for them, not around them
- The climate case — Hobart’s cool-temperate winters are exactly where certified Passive House performance pays hardest: warm, dry, and near-zero heating bills
- Bruny and the channel — building further south? Captains Quarters and Lunalon are under construction on Bruny Island right now
Where we’ve built around Hobart
Each of these is a suburb we have completed work in — not a service-area pin. The building conditions genuinely differ between them, so each has its own page:
- Blackmans Bay — Bluebush, our certified passive house and the 2026 GreenSmart Home of the Year. Sloping, west-facing channel blocks.
- Sandy Bay — Verndene. Steep riverside sites, heritage streetscapes, constrained access.
- Bellerive — The Curve, HIA Tasmania’s Bathroom of the Year 2025, and Waverley. Eastern-shore sun and wind.
- Howden — steep bush blocks where the bushfire rating, access and services decide the project before design does.
- Margate — Margate Medical, plus residential across the channel.
Further south again, Captains Quarters and Lunalon are under construction on Bruny Island.
Builders in Hobart: how to tell them apart
Hobart has no shortage of builders, and almost all of them describe themselves in the same words. Three things actually separate one from another, and you can check all three before you sign anything.
Proof you can verify. Ask for awards by year, body and category — ours are listed in full on the awards page. Twenty-six state and national wins between 2021 and 2026, four of them national, including the 2026 HIA Australian GreenSmart Home of the Year for a home built here in the South.
A price you can interrogate. We build open-book. You see the trade quotes, the allowances and the margin. Most Hobart quotes are a single number with a brochure attached; ours is a document you can read line by line.
Measured performance, not claimed performance. Anyone can say a home is energy efficient. A certified passive house has been blower-door tested and independently audited. Bluebush came in at 0.5 air changes per hour against a 0.6 limit. That is a number, not an adjective.
Building companies in Hobart — and why a custom builder is different
Most of the large building companies working in Hobart operate on a volume model: a catalogue of plans, a fixed set of façades and inclusions, and a price that works because the same house gets built many times. That model is genuinely good at what it does — speed, certainty and a lower entry price — and for plenty of buyers it is the right answer. We have written an honest comparison of house and land packages versus a custom build rather than pretend otherwise.
What it cannot do is respond to a difficult block. Hobart’s best sites are steep, wind-exposed, heritage-constrained or all three, and a plan drawn for a flat suburban lot will fight every one of those conditions. That is where a custom home builder earns its keep: the house is designed around the site rather than dropped onto it.
House builders in Hobart and the eastern shore
We build across the whole southern spread — Sandy Bay, Battery Point, South Hobart and West Hobart through the city; Bellerive, Howrah, Lindisfarne and Rosny on the eastern shore; and south through Kingston, Blackmans Bay, Margate, Howden and the channel to Bruny Island.
Each of those areas asks something different. The inner suburbs bring heritage overlays and tight access. The eastern shore brings wind exposure and afternoon sun that has to be managed rather than welcomed. The channel brings distance, services and weather. We price all of it into the 48-hour feasibility rather than discovering it on site.
What it costs to build a home in Hobart
A genuine custom home with us typically starts around $5,000 per square metre in 2026, priced from each home’s own design rather than a rate card. Most of our Forever Homes land between $850,000 and $4 million. In the South, three things move that number more than floor area does: site slope and access, the extent of glazing to a view, and whether you are pursuing certified performance.
We publish the detail openly rather than making you ask — see what it costs to build in Hobart and the statewide cost to build in Tasmania guide. Then get a real number for your own block with a 48-hour feasibility, costed across roughly ninety separate categories and landing within 10% of the true build cost.
Why a Hobart winter makes the performance case
Hobart’s winters are not extreme, and that is precisely why so many southern homes are uncomfortable in them — the climate is mild enough that poor building fabric never gets treated as a fault, just as a heating bill. Cold rooms, condensation on the glass and mould in the corners are so common here that people assume they are normal.
They are not. They are what happens when a house leaks air and loses heat faster than a heater can replace it. We have written about why Tasmanian homes get cold and damp and what actually fixes it. The short version: an airtight, continuously insulated envelope with heat-recovery ventilation. Bluebush, at Blackmans Bay, is what that looks like when it is taken all the way to certification — and it needs roughly 80–90% less heating energy than a typical build.
Not every Hobart client wants a certificate, and we will say so when it is not worth it. But the building science underneath makes any southern home better.
Why Hobart homeowners choose Zanetto
- A certified Passive House delivered in Hobart — with the owner’s review to read
- Six southern projects from Sandy Bay to Margate, photographed on this site
- Sensitive, considered design for heritage and view-corridor sites
- Open-book pricing and a transparent process that protects your budget
New home builders serving Hobart and the eastern shore
As new home builders in Hobart, we work right across the city and the eastern shore — Sandy Bay, Battery Point and South Hobart through to Bellerive, Howrah and Lindisfarne, and south to Kingston, Blackmans Bay and Margate. Unlike the volume building companies in Hobart working from repeat plans, every home we build is a one-off custom home, designed around its site and priced open-book.
That’s the difference that shows up in a Hobart winter: a home engineered for the southern climate, not a template dropped onto a block. If you’re comparing home builders in Hobart, start with the 48-hour feasibility — a number within 10% of your real build cost — or read how we think about the cost to build in Hobart.