Building, construction and carpentry prices across NSW plummeted last quarter signalling an early indication the housing market may have finally peaked.
The cost to hire a carpenter decreased by 8.7 percent compared to the previous quarter, with building and construction prices also down 5.6 percent.
โWe believe the result suggests an impending downturn in the property market. Fewer property owners and investors are undertaking renovations so consumer confidence might not be as strong as it was last year,โ says ServiceSeeking.com.auย CEO Jeremy Levitt.
โInvestors only renovate for a positive return on investment and if that potential is not there they wonโt renovate. Our data shows a relative oversupply of tradespeople to current levels of demand resulting in downward pressure on tradie prices.โ
The Victorian renovation sector has started the new financial year strongly with tradie prices up 2.4 percent year-on-year.
All trades in Queensland, with the exemption of electricians, recorded big revenue hikes in the past year according to new statistics. Building and construction services were the biggest winners with a monumental 20.3 percent increase in prices year-on-year and an incredible 14 percent quarterly rise. The average price now sits at $69.73 in the sector, taking it to 10 percent above the national average.
The soft housing market in WA has had a flow-on effect with a 25 percent downturn in building and construction costs. Reporting a massive year-on-year fall to $59.27 per hour, building and construction tradies are feeling the pinch. Their prices fell 7.9 percent in the last quarter alone according to data released today by jobs website ServiceSeeking.com.au.
The average cost to hire a tradie across Australia is $59.56 per hour, up 1.6 percent year-on-year and 0.7 percent on the last quarter.
The prices were derived by comparing a sample of 52,000 quotes submitted during the FY17 Q1 through ServiceSeeking.com.au, the website for getting any job done from tradies to professional services.
To view price changes across eight popular renovation services around the country, including major capital cities, seeย www.serviceseeking.com.au/renovations