Renovation Costs for Q4 FY15 Revealed – ServiceSeeking.com.au

Posted at h in Bathroom Ideas, General, Interior Design, Latest News, Sydney by Liane Cooper

Renovation Costs for Q4 FY15 Revealed – ServiceSeeking.com.au

Australia is a nation of home lovers. We love the beach and we love our family and creating a space for us to relax in is a high priority. The idea of beautiful kitchen designs and bathroom renovations to create the perfect space are dreams of many.

There is no real surprise that renovation costs have increased around the country and as a compulsive renovator myself I’ve definitely seen the price rises. So to find the best price we must get several quotes for each job, but this is time-consuming and life is so busy.

So as renovators become comfortable with the online world their ways of finding tradespeople, have changed.

Previously we used to ask a friend or family member for recommendations, then we had the trusty Yellow Pages as our only real business directory but now we look to the internet. We turn to websites where we can post our own jobs and have many tradespeople respond to our requests – times have changed!

Service Seeking is one of these websites – ServiceSeeking.com.au is one of Australia’s largest services marketplace. With over 1.7 million jobs submitted and over 6 million quotes compared, the platform connects customers looking to hire a local business for any job around the home.

Yesterday Service Seeking revealed that

[quote]the cost of renovating a home in NSW has risen by 2.5% over the year (in part, due to a trades labour shortage).[/quote]

There results have been derived by over 52,000 quotes that were submitted by tradesman over the past year on their platform, Service Seeking feels this gives them an accurate data representation of the current Building, Construction and Renovation landscape.

So when comparing the costs of renovating in Q4 FY15 compared to the prior Service Seeking found –

With more than 1.7 million jobs listed on ServiceSeeking.com.au to date and over 6 million quotes compared, the company’s latest findings provide a strong indication of renovation costs around Australia.

While renovation costs for NSW homeowners have increased, average hourly rates remain 1% lower than the nation’s average ($59.77/hr vs. $60.56/hr). “Other states are in the grip of an even greater skills shortage than New South Wales”, says Levitt, “for example, Western Australia and Victoria”.

Although there are plenty of renovation bargains still to be had, the largest savings were found in flooring services, which fell 15% quarter-on-quarter. Concreters dropped their prices by 7%, while hiring an electrician and plumber became cheaper by 2% and 1% respectively.

“We believe the current shortage of skilled tradesman has resulted in price increases across most renovation industries – the interactive map highlights the effect of this by industry” says CEO of ServiceSeeking.com.au Jeremy Levitt.

Home owners can refer to our interactive map to calculate the costs of renovating their own homes:

1. By state (www.serviceseeking.com.au/renovations); or

2. By industry (www.serviceseeking.com.au/renovations/nsw)

From these results I find it interesting that any renovation costs have decreased! I’ve never seen it in my renovation time and with 7 under my belt I’ve seen a few.

I do wonder with Sydney’s buy in price to real estate being so high maybe renovation costs have not risen as much, as the other states catch up.

The only reason for price drops that I can see might have to do with the fact that as the cost of living increases and our spending habits get larger as we all “must have” the latest gadget as it comes onto the market, than many businesses need to drop their prices so that they can win jobs to stay afloat.

What ever the reason is the customer is the winner. They now have many ways to get quotes all coming to them with minimal effort but research must be made for the final selection of tradesperson or supplier of goods. It up to the individual to do their due diligence before moving forward.