Building work prices

agent_orange_2

I have been contemplating having some major building work carried out. With all the bad news around in the building trade - it must surely mean builders quotes will have to be more competitive. In the past, I have heard of builders putting in ridiculously high quotes because they are not worried whether they get the job or not.

I don't wish to sound like i'm preying on the builders misfortune, but it does seem like an opportunity to me.

swake

Well you do sound like youre preying on builders misfortune, lol.

The building trade has taken a few big hits with regards to labour in the last few weeks.But dont assume that will end up reducing the cost of your planned works.

Taylor woodrow , persimons , wimpeys have all announced staff lay offs but the majority of the guys are managerial and aftercare not exactly the kind of people that could come round and build an extension. I have contracts with all 3 above and others and 99 percent of what you could describe as construction is sub contracted out so its not like a surplus of labour is going to flood the private construction market.

All reliable , decent , trustworthy builders are booked up 5-6 months in advance. As people are uncertain about the future of the housing market more people are actually extending/improving the current home instead of moving. If for any reason all my site contracts ended tommorow (all have at least 18 months on them) i would have absolutely no problem finding well paying work "around the houses" for all my employees. I get calls 2-3 a week even though i havent worked privately for over 5 years.

My point is dont assume there is a lot of guys scratching there heads looking for work. I wouldnt reccomend an attempt to get builders to undercut each other for your work citing redundencies as you will end up with no builder or someone you wish you had never had working for you in the first place.

Good luck with what you choose to do though

agent_orange_2

Swake, I would never "cite redundancies" in an attempt to get a fair quote. I would just anticipate, maybe, there could be a shortage of work for the building trade in the months to come. Therefore, as in everything, supply and demand will come into play.

woodbutcher_2

Funnily enough,me and my mate were having a discussion about this today.A local Housing company has just laid off 40% of it's staff including tradesmen(my nephew being one of them) and we were saying more guys are going to come over to private work and would this have an effect? My mate has lots of work ahead of him and is getting more enquiries about extensions than ever thus sort of backing both the above posts.Yes,tradesmen are being laid off,site work is slowing down and private work seems to be holding it's own.

I don't expect prices to be squeezed just yet,if at all.In fact,we are thinking of raising our prices as our overheads are getting bigger by the day(fuel costs especially) and demand is still high.Add to that a skills shortage(young people don't fancy the building trade) and i aint panicking.I have been through three recessions in my working life and this one isn't going to worry me.Good tradesmen always get work.

nickj_2

if people can't afford to move to a bigger house , they may extend their existing house , so i don't see a slow down for the small builder