Home renovations jump 8% in New South Wales: serviceseeking.com report

Renovation costs in New South Wales rose a sharp 8.11% year-on-year, compared to a national increase of only 1.48%, reveals a new report by services marketplace ServiceSeeking.com.au.

The Renovation Consumer Price Index (RCPI) is a quarterly report by serviceseeking.com.au, analysing 52,000 quotes submitted by tradesman on the website. The report compares the cost of renovating in Q2 FY16 versus the prior year.

For the report, the company used an interactive map that plots price changes across 10 popular renovation services in New South Wales year on year.

NSW was the only state to see a price increase in 10 out of 10 popular renovation services, in part because of trades shortage.

“We're now really starting to see the effects of a cooling property market" said CEO Jeremy Levitt. "As homeowners steer away from purchasing new property, they're investing in their existing properties through value-adding renovations which has pushed prices up.”

The average tradesman charges $64.09/hr, making NSW the second most expensive state to renovate a home (and now more expensive than Queensland).

Carpentry and building saw the largest price increases, up 26.26% and 18.48% respectively.

Although there were across-the-board increases, some services didn’t fluctuate much. For example, prices for electrical work increased 1.23% and concreting rose by 3.18%.

Serviceseeking.com.au has more than 1.96 million jobs listed on its website to date with over 6.8 million quotes compared.