The person who answers the phone
Jesse Barrass — Diploma of Building & Construction • former building-company director • current commercial Site Engineer. Still on commercial sites every week, which is exactly why the advice here sounds different from a course-seller’s.
(hi-vis, on site)
The honest arc
Built, hit, rebuilt — in that order
The trade years
Started on the tools, finished the Diploma of Building & Construction, and learned the difference between a job priced right and a job priced to win.
Running the company
Director of a residential building company — quoting, contracts, clients, cashflow. The years that taught how building businesses actually make and lose money.
COVID
When fixed-price contracts met 40% material inflation, this company went the way half the industry did. Owning that chapter matters: it’s where most of the hard lessons on this site were paid for.
Rebuilding — commercial
Back up through commercial construction: today a Site Engineer on Tier-2 projects, running quality, sequence and subcontractor coordination at a scale where mistakes cost millions.
OwnerBuilderHQ
Owner-builders face builder-sized problems with none of the builder’s infrastructure. This exists to be that infrastructure — education and review, fixed fees, no hourly meter.
How we work
Three rules that don't bend
Education, not inspection
We make you the person who catches the problem, and we’re explicit about the line: document review and guidance, not certification, not legal advice.
We’ll tell you not to owner-build
Roughly a third of Go/No-Go sessions end in “not yet” or “no”. If that honesty costs us a sale, it was a sale worth losing.
Proof over promises
The savings counter, the ledger case studies, the documented figures — if the method works, it should be countable. It is.
Credentials
On paper, for the record
- Diploma of Building & Construction
- Former director of a residential building company
- Current Site Engineer on Tier-2 commercial projects
Media, podcast or speaking enquiries: admin@ownerbuilderhq.com.au
Talk to a person who's carried a builder's risk
Call 0484 508 363, or start with the free quiz — and if owner-building isn't right for you, that's exactly what you'll hear.