The world-leading pool technology that reveals a growing backyard trend

Australian home owners still covet pools despite the cost-of-living crisis, the industry says, though their preferences are shifting towards efficiency and wellness.

A creative pool has cleaned up at the 2025 Swimming Pool and Spa Association awards of excellence, partially for how it responds to these trends, builder and Laguna Pools director Glenn Maxton says.

“It probably encapsulates a little bit of everything that’s going on right now. It’s really unique in the sense that it utilised a wet-edge [or] infinity-edge pool and its use of clever design to minimise the pool fence,” he said.

“It’s got a cold plunge built-in, it has a spa … the whole brief around it was bringing the wellness lifestyle with a busy young family, that maximised the garden space but could be used all year round. At-home wellness is definitely a big thing.”

The winning pool — a backyard build in Melbourne’s Clifton Hill made up of two offset, rounded triangles which make up the pool, plunge pool and separate spa — also featured what Maxton believed was an Australia-first, maybe even world-first, innovation.

“With the cold plunge, we’re the first to have done it integrated into a family pool,” he said. “They’ve got a dividing wall between them, but if you look at a photo [from the side], you wouldn’t be able to tell there’s an edge there.

“Because of the infinity edge, you can keep both water levels without the hot and cold water fighting each other.”

It won in the concrete in-ground spa, pool landscape design and spa of the year categories.

Meanwhile, a large, curved, multi-tiered pool set against a bush backdrop by Zen Building Pools Landscaped in Mittagong, NSW, won in the innovative project, concrete pool of the year, concrete pool & spa combination and concrete pool over $240,000 categories.

SPASA chief executive Kristin Brookfield said buyers had become more conscious of the effect of a pool on the environment as well as their budget.

“There’s definitely a trend out there for sustainability, innovation and size,” she said. “[It’s become]: how can we give you some water to relax in the space of your backyard or what you have available? You have a lot of competition in the market for modular, prefabricated swim spas.”

Budget-conscious pool buyers were opting for cheaper and smaller prefabricated swim-spas, which could be used more flexibly and could be built faster than traditional, larger pools.

“You can have a swim-spa up to six metres long,” Brookfield said. “Which is a big unit, they give you the splash around pool opportunity but also the warm relaxing opportunity.”

Swim jets and plunge pools were other popular additions, which pool buyers added for exercise and wellness purposes, she said.

Domain chief of research and economics Dr Nicola Powell said home buyers were consistently interested in homes with pools. “You can actually add keywords to [the Domain listings] search and often when we do the end-of-year wrap, pools are always up there,” she said.

Last year, for example, “pool” was the most-searched keyword on Domain.com.au, beating “waterfront”, “view” and “study”.

Powell said it was hard to say if adding a pool added value to a home, given how polarising owning and maintaining the facilities could be.

“Look, I think you can often slice buyers in two. There is a section of the buyer pool that is not interested in having a pool,” she said.

“But with technology advances, the upkeep of having a pool has become so minimal. Particularly when you have mineral pools, there can be health and wellbeing elements that can draw people to a house with a pool.”

Both Brookfield and Maxton said the pool industry had slowed in the cost-of-living crisis, but noted they were typically luxury amenities.

“I think we play in the custom luxury end of the market, so there’s always someone there at that end of the market,” Maxton said. “But it has impacted the market, in the sense that people are taking longer to make decisions.”