Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Sep 25, 2016 11:44 am Hi I am a student of Building and Construction Management at University of Canberra. I always thought it would be quite profitable to be a builder in Australia. However, recently, I heard a lot of cases where lots of builders have gone bankrupt and a builder also told me that the profit margin in building industry is very low. He suggests me to work at the Government instead. However this builder is very wealthy and he mainly renovates old houses and keep the properties for many many years. Is it that bad as a builder in Australia? Re: Prospects of being a builder in Australia 2Sep 26, 2016 1:00 pm I think in a lot of these cases the builders that have gone bust are operating in the lower end of the market like the cheaper project homes where as that other guy has said the margins are quite low. I think there are a lot of builders out there who are doing very well for themselves in the mid to high end market. This probably applies as much to new homes as for renovations. I know of a few guys from personal experience who also tried to get too big, too fast who came a cropper as well. Stewie Re: Prospects of being a builder in Australia 3Sep 07, 2017 2:47 pm Hi calvinshum A bit late to this conversation, but better late than never. I've worked in Government as a building regulator and in building code development, in the private sector as a carpenter, estimator and now Building Certifier. It depends on what you want to achieve. If you are after a risk-free job with no actual feedback mechanisms of the marketplace telling you how you are actually performing, and you are happy to manage egos rather than customers, than getting a Government job with all its perks can be very appealing. Too appealing in some cases, which is why when I was in Government you basically had career bureaucrats not doing much and just waiting to retire into their superannuation scheme cushioned folds. I was late to the party, and they changed the super scheme before it got out of hand. I'm thankful for that because I don't think I would have been able to leave the public service had I been tempted with the same. As you can see I'm not that enamoured of the public service... anyway I digress... Back to your question. recently in Queensland, there has been a number of home builders that have gone bust, see this article (from my blog post). Some 30+ have gone bust in the last year, an amazing stat and take what you will, I can't verify these numbers, but if true that's a lot of homes left cold. In my experience as a Building Certifier, I have experienced a number of builders going down while the build was in progress, and usually, this occurred to builders who had too much going on at the one time, i.e. they've stretched themselves too thinly by expanding too quickly and never paid attention to cash flow. I've also come to the observation that there is something to be said about ol'skool builders who might only do 2 or 3 houses a year and are still building successfully after all these years. One such builder once told me that he would never build for someone else, so in essence, he was the owner, developer, builder and seller at the end. Other builders, I have worked with have had a preference for only building houses for investors, particularly if they are from interstate. For them, it is simply less hassle. Others like the one you mention seem to be eeking out a great living by renovating, renting and never selling. In a nutshell, there are many ways to skin a cat in the building game. If you want to build because well you want to be a builder, nothing beats hands on experience. Being an owner builder is no walk in the park. It’s a challenging endeavour that requires dedication and hard… 0 10974 My garage door has started playing up recently. Sometimes (and getting more frequent) when I press the button to open it, it wont. The motor is an ATA GD0-6V3. Red and… 0 2744 If you don't want to annoy the neighbours then simply get yourself some good head phones. For me the sound is much better using headphones. The NCC (National Construction… 1 26197 |