From everything that I have read and heard renovating in Townsville in 2008 will continue to be a challenge for home owners.
Most quality builders in Townsville are booked well in advance, and the costs involved with renovating in Townsville continues to escalate. In October 2007 our builder was already booked until July of 2008.
A standard carpenter’s rates right now in Townsville is up over $55.00 per hour. Our builder tells us that if a half decent carpenter isn’t paid that much, then they will move on to another job that will pay $55.00 per hour or more.
The rising cost of materials will also continue to drive up the costs of renovating.
Many of the larger building projects in Townsville are being either cancelled or postpones primarily due to a lack of tradesmen. The lack of trained tradesmen is no longer just affecting the small home renovators, but it has reached a point now where it is affecting everyone, including the large developers.
In the lead up to the national election last year here in Australia there was a lot of talk about the lack of affordable housing. There was a lot of discussion about releasing new lands, but I didn’t hear much talk about training up new tradesmen, or importing the needed skills. In North Queensland I reckon that bringing in those skills is what is needed to help alleviate the housing shortage.
Technorati Tags: townsville renovate, townsville tradesmen, townsville builders
That’s a really interesting point I’d not considered before (given that my Dad is a builder and thus generally he’s been able to help out whenever serious work was required). In a few years time we’re aiming to build a house from scratch in a fairly rural part of Victoria. We were planning to get a local firm to do the lot – at least to get the frame & walls/floors up. I have a feeling we might be finding ourselves doing more of it DIY or with Dad’s help.