Why you need to invite your builder over for dinner.

You’re probably thinking, why on earth would I invite our builder over for dinner?  But think about the people you invite around to your house for dinner, they’re usually friends, family or people that you like.  So why is it important that you need to like your builder?

This year, thousands of homeowners will unfortunately fall victim to the spike in many large Australian building companies becoming insolvent.  There have been hundreds of building business insolvencies throughout Australia in the last year. The building industry is in a difficult position at the moment.  The rising cost of materials, material and trade shortages and COVID-19 delays has created a perfect storm.

The Perway team are a part of a group of builders from around Australia who catch up daily to discuss industry insights and provide building and renovating advice.   One group member recently told a story about a larger building business on the East Coast who knew they were becoming insolvent.  The salespeople were instructed in that business to sign up as many jobs as possible to keep cash flow coming in.  Where do their morals lie?  Just because a building business may be bigger, it doesn’t mean that they are smarter, or they care more.  They were also offering $5k bonuses to various trades to get things completed by a certain time and poaching the trades away from smaller builders.

Another story was a ‘big’ builder offered $50k discount to a client so that they would sign a contract with them and not go with the smaller builder. The clients asked the smaller builder if they could provide the $50k discount, in which they were unable to. Sadly, it ended up costing the clients a lot more than the $50k to finish the job with variations and items that had not been priced into the works initially.  Regrettably, those clients now hate the building industry and hate builders because of what happened. You could not blame them for having those feelings either.

We are not here to bash out large volume builders or renovation companies, but we do want to ensure that homeowners do the right checks and choose their builder carefully, so they can avoid some of this pain.  We encourage any homeowner who wants to complete a home renovation or build their home, that they connect with their builder on a value level instead of a transactional level. Make sure that you choose a builder that you know will provide you with a great experience. For you that could be communication, personal detail, conversations, openness and honesty.

Unfortunately, there are some building businesses out there that have destructive practices that taint the building industry.  Make sure you have a criteria for choosing your builder.  It will save you a lot of heartache in the end.

At Perway, we have a criteria for choosing our clients.  Would we be happy to have those people around to my house for dinner?  If we said, “Oh No Way!” then we probably shouldn’t be working together. And the same goes from the clients’ perspective as well.  At the end of the day, we need to both make decisions based on that question – would you be happy to have us round for dinner and would we be happy to have you around for dinner?  There needs to be two affirmatives before anybody can move ahead with the process.  It’s so simple but makes so much sense.

Many of our clients when we have finished their home renovation still want to catch up for a beer and a coffee, months and years later, so it proves the kind of relationship that has been built between us.  One we love.

Don’t be a homeowner statistic who had the misfortune of choosing the wrong construction company.  Make sure you like your builder enough that you want to invite them over for dinner and have a totally amazing building experience.