ConstructionClare BurnettTue 22 Sep 26
The Builder Question Developers Just Can’t Afford to Get Wrong
At $5000 per square metre at a minimum to build an apartment, attracting and retaining the right builder is critical.
According to Infinitec Group managing director Paul Cavallucci, the industry needs to be smarter about where to achieve productivity gains and how to work with builders to get the most out of a project.
“Most of the productivity we can affect in the short term is off tool—systems and sharing information, documenting and monitoring safety, controls and timelines,” Cavallucci explains on the latest episode of the Blueprint podcast.
Understanding and using AI—not necessarily directly—is a key to these productivity gains, he said.
“A lot of the software that we use is implementing AI in a secondary space, trying to be more efficient—time efficient and labor efficient.”
Speaking on the Urbanity Live stage with The Urban Developer features editor Leon Della Bosca, Cavallucci said that the market needed to be nimble now more than ever.
“What’s changed is the speed at which people need to react to market conditions. Everyone knows that everything’s changing constantly—whether it’s buildability, whether it’s cost pressures, whether it’s sales pressures, finance pressures.”
This is where communication and early contractor involvement become even more important.
"There’s no point having a project that is what I call over‑DA’d—too many basements, too high, too big, too fat—and then coming to us and saying, ‘How do we make it work?’,” he said.
“A lot of issues ... in projects occur in ground, so having good information about your ground conditions and having a team that’s aware of that is really important.”
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, Cavallucci said, especially when it comes to price volatility.
“Materials haven’t necessarily stabilised. Some have and some haven’t. But the ones that haven’t stabilised seem to be more predictable and so the predictability gives confidence [and that] confidence reduces risk.”
Listen to the full conversation on the Blueprint podcast, available now on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music.
