From 'Wild West' to Gold Standard: How NSW's Building Commissioner Revitalised a $24 Billion Industry

There was a time not so long ago that the NSW building industry was referred to as the Wild West. One in 10 new residential apartment blocks in NSW had serious defects and there was no way to tell the good developers from the bad, as buyers crossed their fingers and hoped for the best when choosing a new apartment. As NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler joked, people buying new apartments had less consumer protection than someone buying a toaster or washing machine.

Add to that the scenes that played out on the nightly news of the thousands of residents evacuated from their Sydney Olympic Park apartment block on Christmas Eve 2018 as it threatened to collapse, followed by the 130 residents given hours to flee their Mascot apartment months later.

Into this scenario stepped the first ever NSW Building Commissioner, David Chandler. In just four short years, he has managed to bring a new transparency and confidence to the $24 billion industry. As one industry expert put it, “he managed to turn the Titanic around” not only because of the positive changes he brought to the industry, but the speed with which he did it.

“I remember back in the day the barbecue conversation was ‘You wouldn’t buy an apartment built in the last 10 years’,” says Urban Development Institute of Australia NSW CEO, Steve Mann.

“That was probably not right but there were enough problems for that to be a reasonable conclusion for consumers. We lost the confidence of consumers and no industry can afford to do that.

“So, although that was just true of the fringes (of the industry), we had to hone in on those fringes and reign it in.

“And that required very strong leadership.”

It is almost universally accepted in the building industry that one of the most positive changes in recent years is the introduction of the independent Construction Industry Rating Tool (iCIRT). It allows consumers buying a new or off-the-plan apartment in NSW to check the credentials of the company delivering the work.

So far, more than 200 companies have been rated through an independent and rigorous process, which experts claim is giving consumers the power to choose wisely, for the first time ever, who builds their home.

“Consumers are now asking for iCIRT ratings when visiting display units,” says Karen Stiles, director of the Owners Corporation Network of Australia. “And savvy real
estate agents are now focused on marketing rated developments.”

Fabrizo Perilli, the NSW president of the Property Council of Australia, calls iCIRT a “catalyst for change” in the multi-residential property industry.

“We are yet to see consumer confidence and the purchasing of apartments return to pre-COVID levels, however we anticipate this to improve as more and more developers and builders adopt the iCIRT rating,” he says.

“In the current market, trust, transparency and certainty are paramount for buyers and investors.” Perilli adds it’s also an effective way for developers and builders to differentiate themselves from their peers when communicating to purchasers who are rightly seeking an additional layer of certainty and peace of mind.

NSW chapter president of the Australian Institute of Architects, Adam Haddow, says Chandler’s cleaning up of the industry benefits not only consumers, but all elements involved in the building process.

“From an architect’s point of view, the checks and balances that Chandler has been able to put in has reigned in some of the challenges we felt with the construction of apartments,” the director of architecture firm SJB says. “Before Chandler came in, a lot of things like materials could be swapped out during the construction process and we had little control.

“He brought in more constraints over what can be changed, so you just can’t swap brickwork for aluminium, for example. Most new apartments in NSW are sold off the

“plan and consumers commit to buying an apartment on the info provided during the marketing phase. Now there’s more consumer confidence that they will get the product they committed to.”

While Chandler’s four-year role was due to expire in August, the Minns Government has encouraged him to stay on until the new Building Commission is established by the end of 2023.

The Building Commission was a Minns election promise to ensure quality building and an increase of supply to stem the ongoing housing crisis that has dominated public debate in recent months.

Despite the positive changes, Mann says the apartment sector is “in turmoil” in terms of supply. At its peak in 2018/19 new apartment builds represented almost half of all new housing stock, delivering around $33,000 apartments a year. Mann says that number is down to around 10,000, highlighting a crisis in housing shortage.

“We have a whole lot of economic challenges,” he says.

“There has been layer upon layer of challenges, through the COVID years, the financing of these big projects and construction costs have become more difficult.

“But with the deep affordability challenge we’ve got, apartments must be the big future, it has to be.”

President of the Strata Community Association of NSW, Stephen Brell, agrees.

“The government has predicted NSW needs 30,000 strata lots per year just to keep pace with current demand and given that we are falling behind, that is a challenge for the government and for the planners,” Brell says.

“With affordability, in Sydney in particular, being very expensive the Minns Government has a focus on medium-density living, particularly around the major transport hubs of Sydney. As Sydney is bounded by national parks to the north and south, mountains to the west and the ocean to the east, the only way is to go up.”

Brell adds the future of the apartment sector in NSW looks bright because Chandler is not only looking to improve the quality of new builds, but also to maintain the existing stock.

“By 2030, 60 percent of strata schemes will be more than 30 years old so we need to focus attention on existing buildings, of properly maintaining them,” Brell says.

“We have to make the industry resilient going into the future.”

Ben Broca launched a company last December that offers AI tools to entrepreneurs. He’s already added 10,000 paying customers and is on track to bring in $10 million in revenue this year.

One thing he hasn’t added: any other employees.

The 40-year-old is part of a class of entrepreneurs who are launching, and then often running, new companies on their own. Artificial intelligence tools answer Broca’s emails, help write and debug code, field requests from customers, sign up new subscribers and grant refunds when issues arise.

Broca relishes his ability to make whatever decisions he wants on his own, often from his sun-drenched Sausalito, Calif., living room. “I think compromises make lukewarm results,” he said.

Once upon a time, running a business of a certain size required a team. AI is turning that assumption upside down, and more aspiring entrepreneurs are going it alone.

Ben Broca sitting in his home office. — Tech has seen an explosion of solo founders in the past year. Broca said he likes being able to work at his own speed, unencumbered by a team. Jonah Reenders for WSJ

An analysis by the payments company Stripe shows there are thousands of solo operators on the company’s platform that are generating over $1 million in revenue, with their ranks doubling between 2023 and 2025. The number of solo operators crossing the $10 million threshold nearly tripled in that same span.

In the past, people without business contacts or particular savvy might not have known how to get their ideas off the ground, said Ernie Tedeschi, Stripe’s chief economist. “Now, AI can be a built-in business partner,” he said.

AI’s ability to handle various administrative tasks makes it potentially useful for launching solo businesses in many fields. But the technology’s ability to also handle key tasks in tech, like coding, make that field a particular hot spot.

Analyzing Census Bureau data, Bank of America Institute economist Taylor Bowley found that among all industries, new business applications in the information sector have seen the biggest percentage increase—nearly 45%—over the past year. At the same time, the rate of information-sector applicants saying they plan to hire workers has experienced the sharpest decline of any measured industry.

This Census dataset doesn’t track solo-operated businesses. But the numbers broadly show—in tech and beyond—that applications are flat among businesses likely to hire workers, but generally rising elsewhere. Economists say that’s a strong sign that solo operators are on the upswing.

“The bar for getting started has never been lower,” said Julian Weisser, who runs a San Francisco-based accelerator for solo founders working in tech. The accelerator—which offers founders seed money and mentorship in exchange for an equity stake—attracted 4,500 applicants for 10 slots made available in its most recent cycle, nearly five times the number it drew when it launched last May.

Going it alone with AI can still be surprisingly expensive. Broca said he was losing money on many customers’ accounts while paying to access Anthropic’s Claude to run his clients’ requests—that AI company, as well as others, charges based on usage. He has since switched to free open-source AI models from China.

Broca said he has raised $30 million from investors and, at the same time, has saved millions in salary since he hasn’t needed a team of software engineers.

Another risk: If it’s easy for one entrepreneur to launch an AI-assisted business, copying them can be easy, too. This creates anxiety for founders like Troy Johnston, who runs an AI-assisted business alone in Orlando, Fla.

“Everybody has the sword and we all have the ability to unsheathe Excalibur now,” said Johnston, 40, who used AI to code an app that helps people get the most out of credit card benefits. The company makes around $3,000 a month in profit, with no employees, and is continuing to grow.

Troy Johnston said AI’s power and ease of use is an incredible boon for entrepreneurs like him—and also a double-edged sword. Luann Koerper

What one-person businesses will mean for the labor market remains to be seen. Polling has shown Americans are worried that AI will replace jobs, and top economists are wrestling with that possibility, too. But AI is also creating lots of new jobs, and the go-it-alone entrepreneurs show how the technology can both open doors and limit employment opportunities.

“If everyone’s hiring less, but you get four times more firms, what does that do to head count?” said Rembrand Koning, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who studies entrepreneurship. He co-authored a recent study that found that among 50,000 startups the researchers examined, those focused on AI tended to operate with 25% fewer employees.

Koning also believes a soft hiring environment that’s left some people mired in long job searches has encouraged more to try their hand at launching businesses.

Some founders cite different motives. “It’s a perfect storm of post-pandemic burnout and a re-evaluation of one’s priorities, and also booming AI and a sense of what’s possible,” said Samir Ahmad, 39, who lives in Breinigsville, Pa.

Two years ago, Ahmad decided to leave the corporate job he had worked at Verizon for almost two decades to start a solo coaching and consulting business. He had been seeing social-media posts touting the ease and virtues of AI, which he used to chart a business plan and help with marketing. “It was like my chief of staff, a second in command,” he said.

The business ultimately petered out within months, though, and Ahmad is now back to a full-time corporate role with a utility company.

For Claire Vo, 41, AI helped her turn a passing impulse into a business. She was working full-time as a tech executive when she tapped AI in late 2023 to help code an app that would help her manage documentation and design for new products, with customers ranging from financial services to healthcare firms.

“I was copying and pasting from ChatGPT,” said Vo, who lives in San Francisco.

Claire Vo smiling into the camera while recording a podcast. — Claire Vo used AI to code an app that’s on track to make seven figures in profit this year. Claire Vo

She put the app online for $1 a month, and within weeks people downloaded it thousands of times. Nearly three years later, Vo’s company—which she ran solo for nine months before hiring an engineer—now has 100,000 users and is on track to make seven figures in profit this year. AI handles the company’s marketing, sales and customer support.

While AI is a shortcut, Vo said her network and credibility in the industry were key. “I think people over-index on how easy AI is and under-index on how much I did to get to this point,” she said.

From ‘Wild West’ to Gold Standard: How NSW’s Building Commissioner Revitalised a $24 Billion Industry

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