Margie Maccoll
Noosa builders are being “massively” impacted by the rising costs of building materials and trade workers as well as delivery delays, leading some to halt future work in fear of ruination.
In its September survey of members, Master Builders Queensland found “unprecedented supply issues” which were having a significant impact on the progress of building works. The survey revealed massive spikes in costs with some timber deliveries being delayed by 12 months and bricklayers, tilers, and other trades people impossible to secure even at significantly higher rates.
Master Builders chief executive officer Paul Bidwell attributed the situation to a “perfect storm” of factors. These include a global surge in demand for construction materials, a local surge created by the HomeBuilder grant, interstate migration and low interest rates. In addition ongoing natural disaster insurance repair work continued to monopolise trade contractors and imported materials were still being delayed by Covid supply chain disruptions.
Noosa master builder Doug Walker said in his 25 years in the business he had never seen the situation they face today.
Doug said he’d signed a contract to build a house in Boreen Point last December but in that time costs had soared from $1300sqm to $2500sqm, materials had increased 80 per cent, timber had gone up 60 per cent and steel prices rose each month.
“Some things you get they can’t tell you the price until they land them,” he said.
Doug said pre-Covid window orders would be delivered within 10 working days but it now took three to four months.
He believes Covid was being over used as an excuse for the situation that had resulted from a number of factors.
He attributed some of the problems to large companies dominating trade workers, privatised forest owners selling timber at higher prices on the world market instead of in Australia, tradies such as roofers turning to higher paid insurance jobs and a lack of national manufacturing resulting in the need to import materials.
“Most of the builders are in a fair bit of trouble,” he said. “There’s going to be blokes going broke everywhere.”
GJ Gardner Homes Noosa construction manager Phil Vanderneut said the company was currently working on eight to nine houses with delays stretching completion dates by weeks or months.
“Builders out there are trying to do our best. It’s a crazy time,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of sales. A quarter of our market is people from down south moving up. The hard part is trade allocation. Six months ago we were hit with price rises every day. We have fixed price agreements. Every day out leaves you with more time to absorb price rises. We try to absorb as much as can but it has to be viable.”
HinterNoosa Builders’ Adrian Batista said with big jobs “too risky” to price, they had decided to restrict their business to smaller jobs such as bathroom renovations and decks.
Adrian said if they priced a job at a fixed price then were unable to obtain materials or trades people, the job would risk running behind or at higher costs, leaving them to absorb the extra costs.
“Our last two jobs we’ve already had to put back to next year. We couldn’t get tradespeople,“ he said.
Mr Bidwell said to assist builders and consumers find a way through the current challenges the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) had introduced the Accelerated Billder / Consumer Dispute Framework to act as a temporary independent mediation service. For more information on the service visit qbcc.qld.gov.au
