Josh has worked with more than 56 builders across Australia in the past 12 months. He did it almost entirely through word of mouth. No paid ads. No big marketing budget. Just a reputation built quietly over 15 years in the industry.

That reputation rests on one thing: helping builders know their numbers.

Josh is the founder of Elevate Estimate, a professional estimating service operating primarily across South East Queensland but taking on clients from around the country. He joined The Good Builder Podcast to talk about what he sees every day inside building businesses, why so many of them are carrying risk they don’t fully understand, and what’s happening right now in the supply chain that every builder on a fixed-price contract should know about.

The conversation was timely. And not entirely comfortable.

He Fell Into It. Then He Never Left.

Josh didn’t plan a career in estimating. He was working in manufacturing, rolling fascia and gutter, when an accident on a hydraulic press put him off the tools. The company moved him into the office temporarily. He picked it up fast, a colleague handed him a book, and that was it.

From there he moved to Melbourne, got a start as an assistant estimator through his footy club, worked his way through some of Australia’s bigger volume builders including Porter Davis, and eventually landed with Vogue Homes back in Queensland. He describes that opportunity as one he’s grateful for to this day.

About 12 months ago he made the call to go out on his own. His wife backed him in. He was nervous. Then the phone started ringing.

“I’ve been extremely lucky with the relationships I’ve built over the years,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of people going to bat for me and recommend me.”

Fifty-six builders later, his calendar is full.

Estimating Is the Heart of the Business

One line from Josh in this conversation is worth building a business principle around: “Estimating is the heart of the business. If that is going really well, generally the rest of the business has gone really well. If it’s going poorly, it can have a massive flow on effect.”

It’s not a revolutionary idea. But the number of builders who treat estimating as a task they do between everything else, rather than the function their entire business depends on, suggests it still needs saying.

Josh’s services are designed to cover the full range of what a building business might need. Some clients come to him for a quick estimate off industry rates. Others engage him end to end: sales estimates, procurement, trade negotiations, purchase orders, variations and production estimates, all inside the builder’s own software.

“I’m helping builders know that they can sleep at night because they know what the numbers are,” he says.

He’s not overstating it. One of his current clients, a franchise builder operating through Hattondo Homes, reached out to Josh because the owner wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t know where the numbers were sitting. Since engaging Josh, the business has changed software platforms, established a proper estimating procedure, and has a clear process from sales estimate through to variations.

“He’s smart,” Josh says. “We’ve got him there now.”

The Hats Problem

One of the clearest observations Josh makes is about how builders manage their time. Or more accurately, how they don’t.

“They try and do too much themselves,” he says. “They’re trying to do too much. Instead of outsourcing or getting someone in that specialises in estimating, they try and do it themselves. And then they don’t actually know where their numbers are sitting. They’re using outdated rates, they’re using outdated square metre rates, which you can’t do. And it’s forever changing.”

The parallel is direct. A builder who’s great at building should be building. A builder who’s trying to estimate, do their own marketing, manage their social media, chase variations, and run a team is not doing any of those things well.

“They’re giving 15 per cent to each one,” Josh says. “In the end it’s only going to cost them in the long run.”

This maps directly to something John Davis from MMC Modular said on an earlier episode of this podcast when asked what makes a good builder. His answer was straightforward: a good builder knows its costs. Not a glamorous answer. But a deeply practical one.

What’s Happening Right Now in the Supply Chain

This is where the conversation shifted, and where Josh had things to say that most people in his position wouldn’t put on record.

In the eight to ten days before this recording, Josh had received 40 to 50 emails from suppliers and trades flagging price rises. The majority of them were fuel levies. Concrete has moved. PVC pipes have moved again. One of his builder clients is looking at an additional $20,000 per house in costs they cannot pass on.

Those builders are on fixed price contracts.

“It’s basically a COVID 2.0 in that regard,” Josh says. “During COVID, all these costs went through the roof. None of it came back down.”

The pattern he’s seeing isn’t materials spiking. It’s delivery. Transport. Fuel. Anything powered. Anything that arrives on a truck.

“What doesn’t come on a truck?” he says. The answer, in construction, is almost nothing.

Some suppliers have labelled the increases as temporary fuel levies. Whether those levies come back out is the open question. They didn’t after COVID. If they don’t this time, the already thin margin on a fixed-price contract gets thinner.

Josh’s advice to builders in this position is to get on the front foot. Call your trades and suppliers now. Have an honest conversation about how the cost increase can be shared, even partially. Document everything. If the contract requires the builder to absorb it, at least go in with open eyes and a clear picture of the damage.

“If you can mitigate that risk early,” he says, “you can set a game plan and go into that job knowing we’ve made, or we’ve at least paid to build this house.”

The Insolvency Question

Josh is careful about how he says this. But he says it.

In the current environment, with fuel levies stacking on top of each other, fixed price contracts that cannot be reopened, and builders who are already running tight margins, he believes the industry is heading for a difficult period.

“You will see the most insolvencies this year,” he says, referencing commentary he’d seen from an accountant that morning. “It’ll be a record because of what’s going on.”

He’s not saying this to cause alarm. He’s saying it because builders who don’t understand the cost pressures hitting their contracts right now are the most exposed. The ones who know their numbers, who have already stress tested their margins and had conversations with their supply chain, are in a different position.

“Behind every building company, you’ve got families,” he says. “Kids, wives. They’re the ones that suffer.”

No Pathway for New Estimators

Josh still gets weekly calls from recruitment agents looking for estimators. There are very few to find.

“There’s no real pathway for new estimators coming into the industry,” he says. “There’s no real build-up. You can do your Cert IV or your estimating course, but without someone giving you a go and actually learning on the job, there’s no way to get started.”

The people who tend to move into estimating are tradies who’ve had enough of site life and want to come off the tools. But they often have to take a pay cut to do it, and many don’t. Meanwhile, builders are under enough pressure that senior estimators and estimating managers don’t have the time to properly train juniors, even when they’d benefit from doing so.

The result is a skills gap in one of the most critical functions a building business has. And because demand for experienced estimators outstrips supply, builders end up paying well above market for candidates they’re not certain about.

“For a poor quality candidate that could potentially mess up their entire business very quickly,” Josh says.

There’s no university pathway for estimating. There’s no dedicated training structure. For a function that can make or break a building business, that’s a real gap.

What Makes a Good Builder

At the end of every conversation on The Good Builder Podcast, the same question gets asked. Josh’s answer was one of the more interesting ones we’ve heard.

Yes, knowing your costs matters. That’s a given. But beyond that, Josh’s view is that the best builders are the ones who leave their ego at the door.

“A good builder is someone who realises that there are people out there who are better than them at particular parts of the business,” he says. “And they’re open to those ideas coming in the door and trying to make their business better.”

A construction manager who comes from a different company brings IP. Fresh perspective. Processes the current business hasn’t considered. A good builder sees that as an asset, not a threat.

It’s the same logic that applies to outsourcing estimating, or marketing, or anything else that pulls a builder away from the thing they’re actually best at. The ego that says I should be able to do all of this myself is the same ego that keeps builders stretched thin, using outdated square metre rates, and absorbing $20,000 cost blowouts they didn’t see coming.

What This Means for Builders Right Now

The cost pressures Josh described are landing now, not at tender stage but mid-build, on contracts that were priced in a different environment. If you’re a builder with active fixed-price contracts, this is the time to understand exactly where your margins are sitting.

Get across every fuel levy and delivery surcharge that has landed in your inbox in the past month. Calculate what the cumulative impact is across your current pipeline. Have a direct conversation with your supply chain about where costs are heading.

If you’re pricing new work, this is not the environment to rely on rates you ran six months ago.

And if your estimating process is something you’re handling yourself between everything else you’re managing, it might be time to ask honestly whether that’s the best use of your time, and whether it’s giving you the accuracy your contracts need.

As Josh says, if you don’t know your numbers, you’re flying blind. And right now, the industry can’t afford blind.

Listen to the full episode on The Good Builder Podcast.

Author: TGB Editorial