The Good Builder Podcast

Two states. Same data. Same method. Queensland doubled and Victoria did not. That is the headline from the first State of the Land reports, and it is close to the least useful thing in either of them.

In this episode Az walks through what is actually inside the Queensland and Victoria editions, section by section, and what to look for when you open them. The reports are built on 26 straight quarters of real lot sales inside active estates. Not building approvals. Not median house prices. Every release and every unsold lot is counted and sorted by frontage and area, which is why these reports can tell you what a lot format costs instead of what a suburb costs.

The six things to look for:

Median lot price, and the direction and pace behind it
Months of supply, and whether you can buy land at all
Absorption rate, the early warning sign for where the work is heading
Titled stock, the number most people skip and the one that wrecks a program
The corridor breakdown, 12 corridors in Queensland and seven in Victoria
The lot itself, frontage, format, and what you pay per square metre

Queensland is sitting at 1.6 months of supply. Victoria is at 5.4. Same country, two completely different markets.

Builders, suppliers and trades usually find out what the land market did after it has already done it, and usually from someone with something to sell off the back of it. This is the benchmark instead.

State of the Land is produced in partnership with Terralytics. Links to both reports are below.

Hosted by Az. The Good Builder.

Most builders treat a communication breakdown as a people problem. Dan Okart says it is a clarity problem, and it starts at the top.

Dan from A Thousand Feet Deep is back with Az for a third Monday in a row. The brief was simple. What does effective communication actually look like inside a building business. The answer went a long way past a five point checklist.

Dan opens with the line that frames the whole conversation. The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

From there, three things to do about it.

First, a communication agreement. Not a vibe. A written set of non-negotiables that says this is how we communicate around here. How fast an internal email gets answered. How quickly a client call gets returned. One builder built theirs around the word BRAVE, because they knew their team had to get braver about asking questions. Dan's own rule was that bad news never goes to a client on a Friday. SpaceX bans abbreviations. Different rules, same principle. If it is not a non-negotiable, it is flexible. Anything flexible is sporadic.

Second, know who you are talking to. There is always a communicator and a comprehender, and both carry responsibility. Dan uses DISC profiles to map how people take in information, because the bloke who wants three words and the person who needs the full picture will not meet in the middle on their own.

Third, paint the picture and keep painting it. Dan's rule of thumb is seven. People need to hear something around seven times before it lands. Say it once and you have not communicated it. You have mentioned it.

Then Az asks a question neither of them planned. What about the way we talk to ourselves. Dan calls it the most important thing the two have ever covered. He tells the story of his young fella coming home from footy after an adult on the sideline had torn into him, and what it takes to put context around words before they set. Take your thoughts captive, or they will take you captive.

The conversation lands where these ones always land. Culture is how you do what you do. Leaders build people, and people build homes. And when a building business goes under, the mind usually finishes before the numbers do.

Also in this episode. Master Builders workshop nights across northern New South Wales. Why men and women hear the same conversation differently. And a champion of the 1980s who played an entire career carrying doubt nobody knew about.

Hosted by Az.

For more head to: https://www.1000feetdeep.com.au/

Aaron Applefield has worn nineteen different hats in twenty years at Brett's. Ask him what he does and he reframes the question. His core, he says, is simpler than any job title. He is a coach.

In this episode Az sits down with the man they call Apps. Business Development Manager at Brett's. Baseball coach. Mentor with Live Life Build. It is a conversation that runs well past building.

They get into stoicism and the daily practice of it. Kaizen, and why direction matters more than the size of your steps. Reframing anxiety as excitement, and the language we use on ourselves. Harmony over balance, because a scale only holds two things and life throws more than that.

And the one answer Apps gives to our signature question. What makes a good builder is communication. Not build quality. It matches what builders keep telling us. They think clients care most about the build. Ask the clients, and it comes back to communication.

A rare Good Builder episode about the foundations under the foundations.

Hosted by Az.

This episode is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct. Built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Get a 30-day free trial at myconstruct.com with your exclusive code: GOODBUILDER

A big week at The Good Builder. Az runs through three announcements and three headlines moving the residential building industry right now.

The announcements first. 

The Milwaukee Tools Winter Sucks campaign kicks off, with [20] pieces of heated gear going out over four weeks. Tell TGB why winter sucks and you go in the running. It is a game of skill, so get creative. 

Pulse opens to a small group of builders. It is a customer experience program that surveys your build clients at key stages, then hands the data back to you. Because most of what goes wrong between a builder and a client is not the build. The slab is fine. The frame is fine. What breaks is the experience around it, and the communication sitting behind it. 

And a new State of Australian Land report is close. It maps where land is being released across two states, how supply and pricing are actually moving, and where builders should be looking over the coming years. A lookback across six years, built so you can forecast off it. 

Then the headlines. 

Dreamworld's master plan on the northern Gold Coast has been approved by the state. It covers 55 hectares, four precincts, and staging across roughly a decade. The theme park keeps running and gets room to grow, alongside a big slab of housing, apartments and mixed use. 

Victoria has started teaching the country's first prefab installation qualification, a Certificate III at Melbourne Polytechnic. Good news on the face of it, with a catch sitting in the paperwork. 

Google has quietly started tracking social profiles inside Search Console. A signal of how much of the customer journey now runs through Instagram, reels and reviews, not just your website. 

Plus a look ahead to next week's guest from Brett's Timber and Hardware.

Links:
Milwaulkee Giveaway: https://milwaulkee.thegoodbuilder.com.au/win
The New Home Electrical Specialist: https://www.tnhes.com.au/
The Pulse: https://australianbuildingresearch.com.au/the-pulse-cep

Burnout. Staff churn. Chasing defects. A team that only works when you're standing over it. Dan from One Thousand Feet Deep says none of those are the real problem — they're the cracks that show up when a building business has no foundation under it.

Dan joins Az as co-host for this one, tackling real questions pulled from past episodes with some of Australia's top builders, Kyle Zanetto (Zanetto Builders), Tony Gall (Creation Homes), James Stroud (Stroud Homes) and Peter Wood (Avid Property Group).

What's covered:
 • The first cracks that appear when you're working in the business, not leading it
 • Why sales, cashflow and retention are byproducts — not targets
 • "Structurally sound" vs "momentarily stable" — the hit-by-a-bus test for your business
 • Tensions to manage vs problems to solve (and why you can't fix a tension)
 • The four steps that make hard conversations professional, not personal: set the expectation, empower the outcome, measure the results, hold people accountable
 • What the Penrith Panthers and Toyota can teach a building company about culture

Dan's take is simple: you're not a builder of homes, you're a builder of people who build homes.

Connect with Dan and One Thousand Feet Deep: https://www.1000feetdeep.com.au/

Proudly sponsored by:
The New Home Electrical Specialist - https://www.tnhes.com.au/
MyConstruct - Get your 30-day FREE trial with your code GOODBUILDER at https://myconstruct.com/

 More from The Good Builder: thegoodbuilder.com.au

#TheGoodBuilder #ConstructionLeadership #BuildingBusiness #ConstructionCulture #AustralianBuilders

While the rest of the industry went backwards in FY26, Stroud Homes was the only franchise in our Top 100 report to grow — in both revenue and numbers. So we sat down with James Stroud to work out why.

It's not a growth-hack story. James talks about Kaizen, the Toyota-born habit of fixing every small thing that goes wrong, no matter how lame it seems, and why panning a hard client's feedback for that one fleck of gold beats getting your feelings hurt. We get into defects and why he's anti-handyman, checklists over memory (the way pilots are legally required to use them), and the health-wealth-happiness link that keeps builders from wearing themselves out.

James also flips the whole premise of the show: asking a builder what makes a good builder is like asking a chef if the food's good — the only judge that counts is the client. That one point is changing how we do things at The Good Builder.

Plus his read on where the market's heading: affordability driving duplexes, quality over volume as clients de-risk their build, why modular/prefab hasn't found its time yet, and being a "sense maker" for customers drowning in information.

A frank, no-fluff conversation with one of the most respected operators in Australian building.

For more head to https://franchise.stroudhomes.com.au/

Sponsor: The sponsor for this episode is MyConstruct. Built by Aussie Builders for Aussie Builders, you can get your FREE 30-day trial with the code GOODBUILDER - head to myconstruct.com

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#TheGoodBuilder #StroudHomes #JamesStroud #AustralianBuilders #BuildingIndustry #ConstructionAustralia #Kaizen #ContinualImprovement #BuildingBusiness #TradesBusiness #ResidentialConstruction #BuilderPodcast #ConstructionPodcast #NewHomeBuild #FranchiseBusiness #QualityBuilding #BuildingBetter #ConstructionLeadership

Brendan and Hayley Kelly have spent two decades building XP Finishes into one of the Gold Coast's most respected finishing trades — named Trade Business of the Year in 2025 — but as they say themselves, they're only as good as their last job.

In this episode, Az sits down with the husband-and-wife team behind XPHQ, their customer-facing design hub, and their new decorative brand Atelier. We get into why the finishing trade makes or breaks a home, the real cost of cutting corners (what Brendan calls the "FAFO tax"), and the science behind specialty finishes like lime wash and French wash.

It's a straight-talking conversation about quality over speed, respecting trades, and the culture Brendan and Hayley have built with their team. Plus the line that had us nodding: "perception isn't perfection" — why the builder with the perfect Instagram isn't always the one who can pay their bills.

If you're a builder, designer, or homeowner who cares about doing it properly, this one's for you.

📍 XP Finishes — Gold Coast | XPHQ design hub - https://xpfinishes.com.au/atelier-by-xp-finishes

Fewer homes, more money...that's the Queensland building market in one line. In this Monday episode, Az runs through what's just dropped, what's coming, and the one tool he reckons is one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle for any builder.
Inside this episode:

 • The QLD Top 100 Builder Report (with Australian Construction Data) — why it's a read on the market, not just a ranking. The hundred biggest QLD builders wrote ~6% fewer homes but banked ~5% more, with average contracts up 11.5% to $540k. Plus three ways to actually use the report: benchmark yourself, price your next job, and read the intel.
• The State of Australian Land report (data partner: Terralytics) — a sneak peek before it drops in two weeks. Greenfield land across QLD and VIC, 25 quarters, 36 council areas — including the untitled pipeline. QLD land up 90% in six years with supply nearly gone; Victoria flat with stock to spare.
• A Milwaukee Tools giveaway — we're not telling you what it is yet. Keep an eye on our socials this week.
• The Customer Experience Program — the top 5 things it does for your business: red flag alerts, whole-journey tracking, staff scorecards, your recommend (NPS) score, and benchmarking. Az shares how this drove GJ Gardner's "most trusted" campaign and helped grow the business ~$700m in 12 months.

With thanks to our sponsor MyConstruct. Australia's building software built by Aussie builders, for Aussie builders (30-day trial at myconstruct.com).

Got questions about the customer experience program? Get in touch with us at The Good Builder. Like, subscribe, and share it with a builder who needs it.

#TheGoodBuilder #AustralianBuilders #ConstructionAustralia #BuildingIndustry #ResidentialConstruction #QLDBuilders #CustomerExperience #BuildersOfAustralia #ConstructionData #PropertyDevelopment #LandSupply #TradiesAustralia #NPS #BuildingBusiness #ConstructionPodcast

Australia tends to think it has home building figured out. Michael Hopkins isn't convinced.

A bricklayer by trade, Michael learnt the trade in Wales, worked across Germany, and has spent 30 years on sites in Australia. He keeps going back to Europe to see how they build, and he comes home with the same message every time. On the way we put homes together, we are decades behind.

In this episode he sits down with host Az to walk through what he has seen. Timber frames delivered to site and made weather tight in two days. Keys handed over in four weeks, back in the late 1980s. Double glazing and insulation that all but removes the heating and cooling bill. A German research lab warming a room with a film on the wall and a small solar panel. Slab screeding done standing up, faster and flatter than we manage on our knees.

None of it is theory. It is already being done, just not here.

The real question is why. Michael's answer takes in conservative habits, a fragmented industry, and the red tape holding better building back.

Listen to the full conversation on The Good Builder Podcast, available on Spotify and all major platforms.

#thegoodbuilder #constructionindustry #australianbuilding

This episode is proudly supported by The New Home electrical Specialist. Find out more at thnes.com.au

Every builder is up against the same question right now. How do you build more homes, faster, without dropping quality or blowing the margin?

This episode makes the case for answering it differently. Az sits down with Adam Dawson, engineering and builder solutions manager at Pryda and a chartered engineer, to unpack why the industry stays stuck treating every home as a one off project, and what changes when you start building in systems instead.

At the centre is Truss House, Pryda's framing system that turns the structural shell of a home, the roof, wall and floor, into a set of standard engineered components. Adam explains the shift from project thinking to product thinking, using the car industry as the model of fixed, flexi and free. He walks through what it means on site, where the real bottlenecks in housing supply actually sit, and why total build cost matters more than the price of a set of frames.

The numbers Adam shares are hard to ignore. Homes framed in a couple of hours. A transportable prototype from Major Timber and Trusses stood and braced in 52 minutes. A wall system that lands close to a 10 star home before you touch the detailing.

It is one of the most forward looking conversations the podcast has run, and a real look at what building like a manufacturer could mean for builders across Australia and New Zealand.

Learn more: https://pryda.com.au/trusshouse/

Sponsor:
This episode of The Good Builder Podcast is proudly sponsored by MyConstruct, construction software built by Australian builders for Australian builders. Start a 30 day trial at myconstruct.com.