Charles Corby is the director of Charlie Property and a professional renovator. Picture: Supplied
Ambitious renovators who bought Sydney homes after being inspired by reality TV have been abandoning home renos mid-project over crippling rises in building costs.
The result has been a steady stream of unfinished homes coming onto the market for sale, often stripped down to just wooden beams.
Charles Corby is the director of Charlie Property and a professional renovator who said ”The Block effect” is feeding home renovators with idealised expectations of the construction industry.
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Mr Corby bought 76 Jones Ave Moree for $70,000 where the suburb’s median house price is $299,000. Mr Corby estimates it will take $300,000 to finish the renovation work. Picture: Supplied
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“The problem is that mum and dad renovators or kind of wannabe house flippers might only watch The Block or renovation TV shows, and not understand what’s behind the walls,” said Mr Corby.
“So once they start getting into it, they realise that it’s not just a cosmetic renovation like you might see on The Block.
“The reality is actually much more brutal because the building costs do come into account and it’s not just popping into Bunnings to get things.
“There are just so many steps that need to be done before you start a renovation.
“I just don’t think that they’re showing the office at Channel 9 like, submitting applications to council to get window frames changed,” he said.
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Mr Corby paid $180,000 for an abandoned reno at 109 View Street, Gunnedah. Picture: Supplied
This renovation will cost around $80,000 to finish. Picture: Supplied
Ratings agency Equifax revealed that only 29 per cent of Aussies working on major renos finished on time in the last 12 months and another half reported minor delays of less than three months.
Some overwhelmed home renovators never finish their projects and investors like Mr Corby are swooping in to snap up the discounted properties.
Mr Corby recently bought a Gunnedah home, west of Tamworth for a third of the suburb’s $536,000 median house price after the owner gave up on a reno mid-divorce.
“I’ve seen huge discounts on properties where not much renovation was needed, but the owners had become overwhelmed,” Mr Corby said.
“In one case, I had a house in Geelong west, which was discounted about $400,000 under what they had purchased at only two years ago because they had a builder quote them about $280,000 worth of renovation works.
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Mr Corby bought 52 Itkeston Street, Geelong on behalf of a client for $610,000. The median house price in the suburb is $860,000. Picture: Supplied
Mr Corby said the previous owners became overwhelmed and sold the house unfinished. Picture: Supplied
“It was an investment property that they planned to do up and then rent out.
“It’s just that when they peeled back the walls, I think it all became too much for them.
“I knew looking at it as an experienced renovator that (the renovation work) was not worth more than $30,000 so I understand why people get overwhelmed,” he said.
Equifax found that 34.7 per cent of Australians could absorb no more than a 1 to 5 per cent cost increase before being forced to scale back or stop their home construction projects.
The ABS Producer Price Index shows building construction prices rose 4.9 per cent between June 2025 and June 2026.
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ABS data reveals building construction prices rose 5 per cent in the last year. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sharon Smith
Mr Corby said these rising construction costs have forced him to push his financial buffer for renos from 5 per cent up to 10 or 20 per cent of the total budget.
He said that cost blow outs can be worse in regional areas where there are less tradies and where he regularly sees 30 per cent price mark-ups on basic supplies like paintbrushes.
“Renovation blowouts are not necessarily only to do with the building material costs, although that is a factor, but also to do with trade availability,” Mr Corby said.
“If you have no trades, you have no renovations.
“In a metro market or a capital city where you do have a lot more trades available, then the competition pushes the prices down.
“As soon as you have a lack of available trades or a limited number they can just charge really whatever they want,” he said.
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Senior economist Tom Devitt said the cost of materials are largely outside government control but labour shortages can be targeted.
Senior economist for the Housing Industry Association, Tom Devitt said that politicians can bring down construction costs by targeting labour shortages.
“Basically ever since the pandemic, it’s gotten really, really difficult to get tradies, much worse than it was last decade, even though we were building a lot more homes then,” Mr Devitt said.
“It’s mostly about policymakers dealing with those labour shortages, not because it will result in individual workers becoming cheaper … but it does result in projects being able to be completed faster, which means the whole project isn’t incurring prolonged holding costs.
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16 Ellison Road, Springwood is an abandoned renovation in NSW that’s on the market for $1.3m to $1.4m.
“So the key about labour costs is getting projects started and finished on time, and that will reduce the overall cost.
“Skilled migration is a short-term tool that can and should be used, but over the medium to long-term, we need enough workers domestically to be able to handle construction pipelines across sectors.
“That means more support for apprentices, not just getting them started, but actually getting them to completion,” he said.
ABS data tracking business entries and exits reveals more than 67,401 construction businesses shut last year, marking the fourth year in a row above 64,000 closures.
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A Vaucluse property is on the market for $55m but has been stripped bare in an unfinished reno.
The property has harbour views and is a combined 2,579 sqm site.
Equifax found a 114 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of construction entities shutting down.
Brad Walters is the Equifax Australia general manager and said their data show how the impacts of shortages ripple throughout the industry in terms of productivity and housing affordability.
“Construction underpins a good portion of Australia’s broader economic activity and workforce, but our research shows the sector is facing constraints on the ground,” said Mr Walters.
“What the index highlights is that supporting Australia’s broader economic goals requires looking closely at the capacity bottlenecks and financial friction facing our local builders and trades,” he said.
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