Building price increases

Thanks HTN, read and horrified by the variation clause 1 (h) anything the builder could not have foreseen. There is no way anyone should sign that. That should be limited to latent conditions which are underground, but the way that is written there is a possibility that the builder could claim increased trade and material prices because the havent foreseen them.

need proper legal advice, but doesnt sound good

Thanks Simeon.
I asked several owners and their contracts are all the same like that, either MBA or HIA. I went through my own one with my solicitor and he never picked this point up. Look like a standard practice across Canberra. You may not have heard or will never hear a Canberra builder going broke.

Using an industry professional who does precontract signing consultations is a much better choice than a solicitor..

Ah yes, get legal advice from people not trained or legally entitled to give it, brilliant strategy.

Given the the complete misunderstanding of basic legal concepts in this thread from both people in the construction industry and the general public I'd suggest getting advice from a solicitor wouldn't be a bad idea for most people.

Experienced industry persons who specialise in this field have the experience, the training, know what to look for, understand what they read and are entitled to give advice. There have been numerous H1 members over the years who have posted about wasting time and money on solicitors who were not up to the task.

There are bad solicitors who aren't up to the task.

No different than bad builders who build houses full of defects.

That doesn't mean a solicitor isn't the most appropriate option.

That said a client is rarely in a position to negotiate so the advice is usually pointless no matter who gives it.

I can review a contract and suggest 100 alterations that should be made to protect an owners interests, but the builder has the far stronger position of power and almost never agrees to any amendments of any kind.

And normally by the time people get to a contract they've spent thousand and are months into the process, unless the contract has something absolutely egregious 99% of people will go ahead with it no matter what advice they get.

Yes, very true.

It would be remiss of me to not add that there are solicitors who do specialise in building contracts, at least one of which is a HomeOne Forum advertiser. https://contractsspecialist-sydney.homeone.com.au/

Conversely I know of Sydney builders who have gone to Canberra and gone broke I hear that Canberra has a very different construction industry then the balance of Australia, especially in the commercial sector which is heavily union controlled...apparently.

So reading through the Canberra HIA contract, it has some significant differences in the template. Often you will see in NSW individual builders will insert amendments and special provisions.

Spazzen & H20 are spot on. The volume builders have all the power if you are after that style of product. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be seeking out a specialist construction lawyer ( not just your local family practice lawyer) and no one is forcing you to sign a completely one sided document.

In the custom sector you will have far more ability to negotiate contract clauses, although we are yet to experience this with the Fair trading contract as it's already slanted towards the clients, as it should be. Needs to treat the customer fairly.

Anyway, we are all learning from each other.

Cheers

Simeon

wow very interesting Doozer1905. Are you an estimator / quantity surveyor? Are these the actual price increases per material from the subbies or Are these the mark-up increases builders are charging on client's contracts?

Surely Doozers numbers can't be right

If a bricklayer in Perth has gone up 228% since the start of the year and they were on $70k they'd now be on $230k

Brickies on $230k???

I'm asking because the 228% figure looks about right, but it's probably charge-out rate and not their actual pay.

subcontracted brickies charge-out rate used to be about 90 cents a brick. now it's almost $3.

Hourly pay for brickies used to be about $35/hr. Due to the government grant trades shortages, I've met a lot of them get paid at least $55/hr. obviously the full charge-out rate increase isn't passed on.

This will come down in a year or two (hopefully less). Majority of the grant funded homes are now past bricks & top plate. We saw roof timber / carpenter increases come after, and now colorbond price hike.

Average bricklayer can lay 600 bricks/day.

So at $3 per brick it nets him $1.8k per day or roughly $46k per month at 6 days/week (minus mortar costs?).

Probably ppl should stop dreaming of becoming doctors, lawyers or CEOs and start laying the bricks (which is certainly not a rocket science and most ppl can learn how to lay bricks in a couple of weeks).

$3 per brick is mostly charge-out rate for whoever manages / hires them. they don't get the full increase in rates passed onto their pay... Also doctors tend to have as good security regardless of economy

oh, I see.

Yep I'm an estimator, have been for about 15 years, those price increases are all cost, they are Sub-contract rates for labour, so before Covid19 we were paying $1:20+GST to lay an internal brick we are now paying $3+, the face bricks aren't as bad (about 200% increase) they are all 2 course blocks in WA, very rarely use a standard "1 course" haven't for years.

Those prices that I posted a week ago are by the wasteside now, another 10% increase on roof carpenter labour, 10% on concrete, 8% on plumbing and 5% on cabinets this week.

Been in the industry a touch over 27 years and never seen anything like it, not even remotely like it.

To put it into prospective a gang of 5 or 6 lay between 8,000 to 10,000 bricks on a single storey house and that would take a week, so between $24,000 and $30,000+ GST a week, that's the main subcontractor, he then has to pay his brickies and labourer's out of that money, a brickie in perth at the moment is on around $75 hour and a labourer around $50, obviously he pays superannuation, insurance etc. on top of that so it's probably not as good as it sounds but yes they are making plenty at the moment, most have brand new 4wds towing there new trailers. A brickie in Perth doesn't supply any materials either, the builder supplies everything.
I have sympathy for the brickies, they have been screwed over for many years with the project builders & a lot leave the industry and never come back, the problem is the project guys are the first to put there rates up to steal trade from other builders then the first to drop them when it goes quiet. If they paid a fair amount when it's quiet we wouldn't be in this situation now. We have made the decision to not drop our rates below $1:70 for face and $1:50 for internals when it goes quiet again (which will be sometime) as we believe that's a much fairer number. Before the boom some project guys were as low as $0:80 a brick, bloody ridiculous, no one could survive on that.

Those numbers are highly exaggerated and don't add up
Try cross checking the data...Large teams and Builders are ripping homeowners off.
I suggest you get a trowel and lay 500/bricks per day at $2.00 brick=$1000/day
a house of 10k bricks is 10 days work...LOL you can divide that $10k any way you want between the workers.
The problem is everyone is clipping the ticket from the new home salesman down to the tradies managers/supervisors.
I suggest if you are an owner looking into building get your own plans, data/proofs, estimates, engineering, etc, etc
OT, Builders are now refusing to do accurate estimates without payments... they are being caught out!
As a client told me yesterday on site
"I'm tired of everyone Blowing smoke up my arse.. "

Once again structualBIMguy you show that you have no idea what your talking about, you have a habit of it

oh doozer you made me snort coffee out of my nose

It's all smoke and mirrors...Jokes on the owners, numbers don't add up
nor can you trust what the builders say