EVER TOO BUSY TO BUILD?

Builders’ Business is a column by builders for builders. Its objective is to provide a forum, particularly for small business operators, in which to share knowledge, experience, tips and ideas

Q:When things get really busy, do you ever turn down work?

 

Firm: Stonewood Homes

Interviewee: Brent Stewart

Role: Owner and GM

Location: Nelson and Marlborough

Staff: 12

I don’t take on work if it’s hard to meet demand for supplies or the only sub-trades available are those I don’t have the quality trust in, because our quality badge means everything to me. It’s unfortunate, but regional New Zealand only has a limited supply of good quality sub-trade.

We only build new homes and our ability to do that is limited by the supply of land, so there are a few factors at play. At times, we have a big influx of titled land and we’re run to capacity, so then we would need to turn down any additional work. At other times, it can be tricky to meet demand because of a delay with local council authorities and their infrastructure.

Despite all this, it is rare that we turn down work. A lot of clients know that we stand for excellent quality and good business practice, so they normally adapt to our time frames. If not, there are a couple of associate builders we would try to direct them towards.

 

Firm: High Country Carpentry     

Interviewee: Lain Hellmrich

Role: Owner / Director

Location: Fairlie

Staff: 15

General demand in South Canterbury has gone through the roof – excuse the pun. We’ve taken on new staff as a result, but we’ve still turned down several jobs.

It’s variable work. In the rural area, we normally take on anything that comes our way. We have to be versatile, whatever lands in our lap, and that can be new builds, renovations, million-dollar homes, plus the odd country shed.

We’re pretty lucky at the moment, we have an awesome team. Sub-trades are all busy. Even the go-to subcontractor fellas are struggling to meet what we throw at them. Material shortages are not an issue yet, but that’s likely partly because we do lots of advanced planning.

There have been times when we’ve been unable to meet the client’s timeline. This is largely because a lot of people live in the mindset of an instant world. They think they can just ring a builder and they’ll be here next week, or even next month.

It’s really about getting people to understand the reality that they need to wait. But in today’s environment, people aren’t willing to wait so much. Despite the busy time, many builders have still been able to meet instant work requests, but the tide seems to be turning a little bit, so maybe that will change. If so, people will have no choice but to wait.

 

Firm: W Hamilton Building Limited

Interviewee: Bill Hamilton

Role: Owner / Director

Location: Dunedin

Staff: 25

Post-Covid, there are a lot more people fishing around for information but not necessarily committing to the project. We do a lot of quotes for people as we don’t want to waste their time, but quoting is also time-consuming for us, so it’s not the best option. So, our preference isshovel-ready projects. We’ll never turn those down.

No builder should be doing work without making some profit out of it. That makes me sound like we’re all about profit – but it’s more like if a client comes across as being unsure or difficult, we may choose not to proceed.

There’s a lot more renovation work, as well as smaller jobs, floating around right now. I think there are more renovations due to a lack of land available for new builds, and the smaller projects are mostly being requested by people spending their discretionary budgets on things other than travelling.