An award-winning luxury apartment builder has gone into liquidation as higher interest rates cripple the home construction sector.
Taskers Living Development Company on Monday went into liquidation, which meant the company would cease to exist.
The Perth-based developer in 2016 won the Master Builders excellence in construction award for best apartment building.
It had built apartments overlooking the Swan River and the beach at North Fremantle.
An award-winning luxury apartment builder has gone into liquidation as higher interest rates cripple the home construction sector
But liquidator David Hurt, from WA Insolvency Solutions, said this was a voluntary liquidation with no creditors owed money.
‘It’s a voluntary liquidation, it’s not insolvent. They just don’t need the company anymore,’ he told Daily Mail .
‘It’s not operating now. We’ve just been asked to wind up that particular company, they just closed down that particular entity.
‘The company’s come to the end of its life, for whatever purpose it was set up for, and it’s not required any further.’
Director Gary Dempsey’s Gary Dempsey Developments was the project manager of Taskers’s Siskas development project at North Fremantle, which was completed in 2021.
‘It is standard procedure to close a project entity upon completion,’ a spokesman told Daily Mail .
‘As such Taskers Living Development Company Pty Ltd has been placed into voluntary liquidation as a part of this process.
‘All liabilities have been cleared and there have not been staff for a number of years.’
Mr Dempsey is continuing to build apartments with his other company Gary Dempsey Developments, which he established in 1987.
The liquidation of Tasker Living Development Company is occurring after the Reserve Bank of in November raised interest rates for the 13th time in 18 months, taking the cash rate to a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent.
Credit ratings agency Moody’s Analytics warned the construction sector was particularly at risk with ‘s economic growth tipped to slow to 0.9 per cent in 2024 – down from 1.9 per cent in 2023.
‘Construction is a particularly weak area, with external administration filings climbing over the past three years,’ report author Katrina Ell said.
‘The construction industry has suffered a perfect storm of labour shortages as well as delays and rising costs for materials.’
Construction firms accounted for 30 per cent of total insolvencies filed with the n Securities and Investments Commission in 2022-23.
Taskers Living Development Company on Monday went into liquidation, which meant the company would cease to exist (pictured is the Siskas development at North Fremantle)
Moody’s Analytics said smaller construction companies, that mainly build houses, were more at risk.
‘Small and medium-size construction firms have been particularly vulnerable because they have not had the cashflow buffers or insurance coverage of their bigger competitors to manage delays and price increases,’ it said.
Western is also set to suffer from dry conditions in 2024 as heavy rain falls on the east coast.
Dennis Voznesenski, a sustainable agriculture economist with the Commonwealth Bank, said this would have implications for farmers in Western .
‘While the east coast of has seen a phenomenal turn around in soil moisture since last November, many Western n cropping regions have continued to swelter in hot and dry conditions,’ he said.
Perth, however, is ‘s best capital city housing market with CoreLogic data showing house and unit prices in the year to January 2024 surged by 16.7 per cent to $676,823.
Director Gary Dempsey’s Gary Dempsey Developments was the project manager of Taskers’s Sikas development project at North Fremantle, which was completed in 2021