Who Are the Best Builders on the Sunshine Coast? How to Actually Judge

There is no honest ranked list of the best builders on the Sunshine Coast, and you should treat any page offering you one with suspicion. No Queensland regulator ranks builders on quality. What does exist is a set of facts anyone can verify for free before shortlisting: licence class and financial category on the QBCC register, complete licence history, insurance, contract conduct, and comparable finished work you can walk through. So instead of a ranking, this guide gives you the criteria and a scoring worksheet, and invites you to run it over every builder you are considering, us included.

Why we will not publish a “best builders” ranking

We build on the Sunshine Coast. Any list we published would have Roebuck Concepts near the top, which makes it advertising dressed up as research. Before you trust someone else’s ranking, check two things: who published it, and whether placement on it was paid for. If the page will not tell you either, the order tells you nothing about who builds well.

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission licenses builders, sets minimum financial requirements, takes disciplinary action and publishes licence history. It publishes no quality ranking of licensees. Its own advice to homeowners is procedural rather than a recommendation: the QBCC says “we always recommend getting more than one quote,” and tells you “don’t base your decision solely on the lowest price – take the time to evaluate each quote for key factors like quality, service and scope of work.” It also warns that “if you accept a quote that is below fair market value and need to make a claim under the QHWS the amount of compensation you receive may be reduced.”

A ranking asks you to trust whoever wrote it. A worksheet asks you to check. On a job worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, check.

The builder scoring worksheet

Score each builder on your shortlist out of 100. The ten rows below add to exactly 100. The weightings are ours, not an official standard, and you should adjust them for your job. Our rule is simple: a zero in any of the first three rows ends the conversation regardless of the total, because those three are the ones the law cares about.

Licence, class and financial category (45 points)

Start here, because it is binary. The QBCC requires a licence for building work valued over $3,300, over $1,100 where it involves hydraulic services design, and for work of any value where it involves plumbing or drainage, gas fitting, chemical termite management, fire protection, completed residential building inspection, building design (low rise, medium rise and open), site classification or mechanical services.

The QBCC’s advertising requirements go further. An advertisement must contain the name under which the licensee is licensed, state that they are licensed under the QBCC Act, and give the licence number, and those details must be “easily legible and reasonably prominent in written or visual material.” A builder whose ads carry no licence number has failed a legal requirement before you have met them.

Use the licensee register rather than the basic contractor search. The QBCC says “the register provides a complete licence history and is more detailed than the ‘find a local contractor’ online search.” Its plainest warning is worth repeating: “If you can’t find them in our licensee register, there’s a chance they’re not licensed.” Our walkthrough is at how to check a QBCC licence.

The check almost everybody skips is the financial category. Under the QBCC’s minimum financial requirements, maximum revenue is “the maximum turnover your business can earn in a financial year,” set by the licensee’s net tangible assets. The QBCC lists SC1 at up to $200,000 revenue against $12,000 in net tangible assets, SC2 at up to $800,000 against $46,000, Category 1 at $800,001 to $3,000,000 against $46,001 to $156,000, and Category 2 at $3,000,001 to $12,000,000 against $156,001 to $480,000, with further categories running up to Category 7 at over $240,000,000 revenue against more than $14,400,000 in net tangible assets. If your renovation is $1.2 million and the builder sits in SC2, the arithmetic does not work: your job alone would exceed the turnover their category permits. That single check tells you whether the builder is licensed to carry a job your size at all.

Contract conduct (10 points)

The QBCC splits domestic building contracts into levels. A Level 1 renovation, extension and repair contract covers $3,301 to $19,999. A Level 2 contract covers $20,000 and over, and at that level the contractor must give you the QBCC-approved consumer building guide before you sign, “the signed and dated contract within 5 business days of entering the contract,” and the commencement notice “within 10 business days of work starting on site.” The QBCC states you need a written contract for domestic building work priced over $3,300 including labour, materials and GST, and that “all contracts for building work valued at over $3,300 must include advice about your right to a ‘cooling-off’ period.”

Deposits are capped. The QBCC sets the maximum deposit at 20% for works valued at $3,300 or less, 10% of the contract price for Level 1 contracts, and 5% of the contract price for Level 2 contracts of $20,000 and over, with an exception permitting up to 20% where substantial customised or prefabricated work performed off site is more than 50% of the contract value. At quote stage, ask which level your contract sits at and what deposit they may legally take. Someone who signs Level 2 contracts every month answers instantly. For how this interacts with pricing structure, read fixed price building contracts in Queensland.

Home warranty insurance (10 points)

The Queensland Home Warranty Scheme is the safety net if a builder cannot finish or will not fix defects. The QBCC states that “principal contractors have an obligation to take out home warranty insurance cover on behalf of their clients” and must do so before starting residential construction work, with the contractor paying the premium. Cover runs for 6 years 6 months from the earliest of the date you pay the premium, the date you agree to a contract, or the date work starts, and the QBCC notes the period of cover may be extended where the work takes longer than 6 months to complete.

The claim windows are tighter than most owners expect. For a structural defect you must first become aware of it within that 6 years 6 months of cover and “make the claim within 3 months after the day you first become aware of the structural defect.” For a non-structural defect you must “first become aware of the non-structural defect within 6 months after the day the work is substantially complete” and “make the claim within 7 months after the day the work is substantially complete.” For non-completion, the work must conclude within 2 years of commencement, or within 2 years of the contract date if work never began, and the claim must be filed within 3 months after the contract ends. Ask each builder how they handle a defect reported five months after handover, then see whether the answer matches those windows.

Comparable finished work (15 points)

The useful question is not how many houses a builder has completed, but how many like yours. On this coast that means salt exposure and wind loading close to the beach, steep or benched hinterland sites, tight streets around Noosa and Cotton Tree, structural pools, and renovations over an existing slab where nothing is square. Twenty flat greenfield slabs is not experience of your job.

Ask to walk one finished project and one currently under construction. The live site tells you more: how it is fenced, how materials are stacked, whether the trades know who is running it. Our own record is on the projects page, including Grandview Drive at Coolum Beach, Nairana Rest at Noosa Heads, Memorial Avenue at Cotton Tree, Columba Place at Pelican Waters and Kara Court at Yaroomba, along with the architects we work alongside, K Architecture and Reitsma & Associates.

Local approvals knowledge (5 points)

The region runs on two planning schemes: Noosa Shire Council administers the Noosa Plan 2020, and Sunshine Coast Council administers its Planning Scheme 2014. A builder working both sides of the boundary should be able to say which covers your address without checking. Sunshine Coast Council states that “a private building certifier can advise whether you need a development building work permit,” and that “some minor building work may be accepted development or exempt building work.” A builder who cannot explain who issues your approval will not manage the approval path well either.

The people who actually run your job (10 points)

Contracts are signed with a company; jobs are run by a person. Ask who supervises your site, how many jobs that person carries at once, who you ring when a subcontractor turns up early, and whether the licensed builder ever stands on the site. Names beat organisational charts. Ours are on the our team page.

What awards do and do not tell you (5 points)

An award tells you one nominated project was entered, documented and judged against others in its category. It does not tell you every job that builder runs is like that one. Roebuck Concepts won three Master Builders Queensland 2025 Sunshine Coast Housing & Construction Awards for the Grandview project at Coolum Beach, presented on 15 August 2025 at The Events Centre in Caloundra: Home Renovation/Remodelling Project over $1 million, Best Residential Swimming Pool, and Best Use of Innovation. Use that by asking which project won, in which category, and whether it resembles yours. Confirm the awarding body too, because Master Builders Queensland and the HIA run entirely separate programs and the two get conflated constantly.

Named design partners work the same way. If a builder lists architects, ring one. Architects are candid about which builders read drawings properly and which ones ring them at 4pm on a Friday.

Red flags that should cost points immediately

• No QBCC licence number in their advertising, quote or email signature.
• A deposit request above the QBCC cap for your contract level.
• Refusal to name the person who will supervise your site.
• No live site they are willing to show you.
• A quote well below the others with no scope difference to explain it.
• “We’ll sort the contract out once we get going.”
• Pressure to sign before you have read the contract and the consumer building guide.

Score us on the same worksheet

Roebuck Concepts holds QBCC company licence 15280811, and director Tom Roebuck holds individual QBCC licence 15015060 with more than 20 years in residential construction. Both are searchable in the licensee register right now, which the QBCC says provides a complete licence history. We are a member of Master Builders Queensland and we work from one office at Unit 1/18 Lomandra Place, Coolum Beach QLD 4573. To walk the worksheet through against your own project, call 0477 333 386. For the wider vetting process, read how to choose a builder in Queensland.