Free Consultation
Book a Free Consultation
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
An electrician with maintenance agreements across a row of Broadbeach towers and one wiring new homes at Coomera can post the same profit and still be worth very different amounts to a buyer.
We value a Gold Coast trades business by capitalising the profit that remains once the owner is paid a fair wage for working on the tools and another for running the office. Service agreements, statutory fire safety maintenance and body corporate work attract a lighter risk loading than builder and tender work, and the vans, plant and tools, net of finance, set the floor.
The call usually follows an event. A national facilities group or a bigger local competitor has made an approach; an apprentice who became the leading hand wants to buy in; a business partner is retiring to the hinterland; a separation means the business has to be valued for a property settlement; the bank wants a figure before it funds another round of utes; or the accountant is moving the business out of a sole trader structure into a company and the ATO expects the transfer at market value.
Often the most useful part of the answer is the explanation. A plumber in Nerang can be flat out every week, earn a strong income and still own a business that is worth little more than its vans and stock once the owner stops working in it. The valuation separates what a buyer would actually be paying for, such as maintenance agreements, a licensed crew that stays and a reputation with property managers, from the part of the profit that is simply the owner's own labour.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
We lead with the Income Approach. Maintenance agreements and compulsory servicing come back every year without anyone having to quote again, and repeat revenue of that kind is exactly what an earnings-based valuation is designed to measure.
Capitalised future maintainable earnings is the working method, beginning with the profit the business can sustain once the owner is charged a fair wage for hours on the tools and a separate allowance for quoting, scheduling and managing staff. That profit is divided by a capitalisation rate made up of a risk-free base and loadings for size, for the trade and for the specific business.
The mix of work decides most of the specific loading. A contractor servicing fire systems, lifts or air conditioning plant in residential towers along the Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach strip, or holding a maintenance agreement with a resort, a shopping centre or the hospitals at Parklands and Robina, starts each year with most of its revenue already in view, so the loading is light. A contractor living on new home starts and shop fit-out quotes starts each year close to empty, so the loading is heavier even when profit is identical.
Sales of trades businesses with a similar size, trade and balance of service and project work give a range to test the result against. Fewer of these sales are visible than in retail or hospitality, so they support the conclusion rather than drive it.
Vans, utes, plant, tools and stock at resale value, after the finance owed on them, give the lowest defensible figure. Where the owner does most of the work and little is under contract, this floor may be close to the whole value.
Most challenges to a trades valuation are aimed at its adjustments, so we list each one in the report with its reasoning. For Gold Coast electricians, plumbers, air conditioning and fire services contractors, these come up most:
Gold Coast trades split into two very different markets. New housing in the northern suburbs, from Helensvale and Hope Island up through Coomera, and apartment construction around Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach and Southport, keeps a large number of electricians, plumbers and air conditioning installers working for builders on tight margins. The other market is maintenance: the coastal strip has a dense stock of high-rise residential buildings, resorts, shopping centres and the hospitals at Parklands and Robina, all of which need fire safety servicing, air conditioning maintenance, backflow testing and electrical compliance every year, much of it arranged through body corporate committees and their managers. Workshops and stores cluster in Molendinar, Arundel, Nerang, the Burleigh industrial estate and Yatala.
Who is able to buy the business comes down to licensing. In Queensland, plumbing, drainage, air conditioning, fire protection and building work is licensed by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC), and electrical work by the Electrical Safety Office, which issues the individual electrical work licence and the electrical contractor licence. When the only qualified person is the owner who is leaving, a buyer has to bring their own, which shrinks the pool of buyers and pushes the rate up. A firm whose technicians hold their own licences, and whose company licences name a qualified person who is staying, changes hands far more easily, and the comparable sales we rely on reflect that.
New operators keep arriving. The construction division, which the ABS uses for electrical, plumbing and other trade contractors, added 3.4 per cent more businesses nationally in 2025 to 2026 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026), and Queensland as a whole, across every industry, finished the year with a net gain of 19,244 actively trading businesses (same source). With so many small operators quoting for builder work, prices stay keen, which is a large part of why recurring maintenance income is valued so differently from tender work.
Every report states up front what the valuation is for, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records we relied on, and it lists anything requested that was never supplied. It then sets out the approaches we considered, the method we applied, each adjustment and the reason for it, and how the results were weighed into a range, written so that a reader who is not an accountant can follow it.
That reasoning is what keeps the figure standing. Partnership and shareholder disputes between Gold Coast tradespeople often end up in the District Court of Queensland at Southport or the Supreme Court of Queensland, and a property settlement runs through the Federal Circuit and Family Court's Brisbane registry. In each, a conclusion that cannot explain why the earnings result was preferred, or why one point in the range was chosen, is exposed under cross-examination. We follow APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and every report is signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will explain and defend it.
Ask what wage they charged for your hours on the tools and where the figure came from. If they cannot point to a source, the profit they capitalised is probably overstated.
An Indicative valuation fits an owner who wants to find out whether there is a saleable business or mainly a well-paid job. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a sale, a partner buyout or a finance application. A Detailed report fits a family law settlement, a dispute between partners or shareholders, and anything a second expert will review.
Start with who will read it. A report a judge, a lender, the ATO or an opposing valuer will rely on must lay out more of its reasoning.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.