WA brick shortage 2026: what we know, what we’re seeing and what comes next

Western Australia has a serious brick supply problem.

For months there had already been shortages across selected two-course face bricks, particularly products commonly used by volume project builders. At Sharp Bricklaying we were aware of it, but at first we weren’t particularly concerned. We predominantly work with boutique, custom and architectural builders rather than high-volume project housing, and the early shortages mainly affected brick ranges that weren’t a large part of our own workload.

Then the shortage reached Maxibricks, and for us the situation changed completely.

Maxibricks are one of the few brick products used almost universally across Western Australian residential construction. Project homes, boutique builds and luxury custom homes all use them. Once Maxibricks were affected, this stopped being a shortage that one part of the industry could work around. It became everybody’s problem.

Over the last few months we’ve spoken with builders, brick carters, distributors, manufacturer representatives, private clients, other trades and people right across residential construction. We’ve also started sourcing brick supply ourselves. This is our attempt to explain what we know, what we’ve seen first-hand, what builders are actually doing, and why we don’t believe this is disappearing anytime soon.

How the shortage started to affect us

Roughly three months before Maxibricks became a major issue, there were already shortages of some two-course face bricks, particularly Lagoona and Bullara-style products. Project builders felt those heavily, because those ranges are common across high-volume housing.

For us it was an industry issue we were watching rather than something affecting our own jobs. Our builders work in the boutique and custom space, and we assumed our market was relatively safe.

That assumption disappeared when Maxibricks became difficult to get.

Whether the pressure on Maxibricks came partly from builders moving away from unavailable face bricks towards rendered finishes, or whether reduced local manufacturing capacity was simply catching up with demand, the change happened very quickly. One minute the shortage felt product-specific. The next, everybody needed the same brick.

Why Maxibricks matter so much

Maxibricks are typically used throughout the internal masonry of a house and wherever walls are going to be rendered or plastered. A fairly typical house might use around 30 packs. At approximately 258 bricks a pack, that’s around 7,740 Maxibricks on one project. That number varies enormously: a smaller project home may use far fewer, while a large boutique or architectural build can use considerably more.

They’re so widely used because of productivity. A Maxi is effectively a two-course brick, so it covers roughly twice the vertical area of a standard common. That means fewer bricks to manufacture, transport, load out and lay.

When builders can’t get Maxibricks, the obvious alternative is standard commons. Structurally, in many conventional applications, that can work. Economically, it creates another problem.

It wasn’t that long ago that the external face brickwork on houses was all laid in standards, while the internal walls were always Maxibricks or ‘Fastwalls’, the same style of brick. Swapping the internal walls to standards would push the price up considerably. You need roughly twice as many bricks for the same wall, and they cost about the same each as a Maxi, so the material cost climbs sharply. Bricklayers also get paid almost the same to lay each one, so with twice as many to lay and twice as many bed joints, the labour on some jobs can approach double.

Then everyone started trying to buy standards. Distributors that previously had large quantities available suddenly had builders and private clients buying them as substitutes. A shortage of one major product started putting pressure on another, which is one of the reasons this has snowballed so quickly.

We heard about the allocation system before it became public

Around three weeks before news reports started talking about brick allocations, one of our brick carters told us Midland Brick was going through historical customer purchasing records and preparing to introduce an allocation system. We then spoke directly with a Midland Brick representative.

What we were told was that Midland Brick was reviewing approximately the previous two years of Maxi pack purchases and allocating customers between 50 and 70 per cent of their historical purchasing volume over a 12-month period. That was when we realised how serious this could become.

The allocation system has since become public. Dale Alcock, managing director of ABN Group, told the ABC there weren’t enough bricks to go around, and that ABN alone had around 100 sites waiting on bricks.

An allocation system based on historical sales naturally favours the companies that have historically bought the most, so volume builders generally start with larger allocations. At first glance that makes sense. But it can create major problems for smaller and boutique builders whose current workload is well above their historical purchases. We know of builders who have tendered or secured far more projects than in previous years and still couldn’t increase their allocation enough to reflect it.

If you received an allocation, you received an email. If you didn’t, the understanding was that you didn’t have one. The allocations applied specifically to Maxibricks, and they went to bricklayers with their own accounts, to distributors and to builders.

Then another problem appeared. Having an allocation didn’t necessarily mean the bricks were available when you wanted them. As everyone tried to draw against their allocations at the same time, the system itself came under pressure. We’ve since heard of bricklayers and distributors being told their allocations can’t be fulfilled for the time being, which has made planning even harder.

The bigger problem is inconsistency

When demand is higher than production, some form of rationing is understandable. Our issue isn’t that an allocation system exists. It’s the lack of clarity around how it works in practice. Depending on who someone speaks to, or their individual circumstances, the answer can seem to change.

We’ve seen builders ask for small increases to their allocation, because their current and future workload is substantially higher than their historical purchasing, and be told no. At the same time, we’ve seen private or non-standard sales handled very differently.

One of the strangest examples involved someone without an allocation being told that if they paid upfront for enough Maxibricks for five houses, supply could potentially be arranged within about a month. Around the same time, another builder was effectively told that without an allocation email they didn’t have an allocation, and their upcoming jobs wouldn’t be quoted. That was despite supply having been discussed only about a week earlier. We’ve also seen private customers secure enough bricks for an entire house while builders asking for relatively small increases were refused.

That inconsistency is probably one of the hardest parts of the current market. If everyone was simply told exactly what they get and exactly when they get it, builders could at least plan around it.

Instead there are still too many unknowns.

Builders have gone from ordering weeks ahead to securing supply when they can, or pre-purchasing allocations of imports

Before this shortage, getting bricks onto a Perth residential site could often be organised within a week or two. That has completely changed.

We’re now seeing builders trying to buy bricks before slabs are even down. Builders are stockpiling, bricks are being stored at carters’ yards, and product is being moved between jobs depending on which site needs it most. People are securing as many bricks as they can, whenever they can.

We’ve seen builders trying to secure up to 500,000 imported bricks at a time. That isn’t buying ahead for the next job. It’s trying to secure supply for the next couple of years. Builders are also asking us for allocations from our own imported stock well into the future. The question used to be whether you could get bricks next month. Now it’s how many you can lock in before somebody else does. How many people have access to imported bricks?

Even leftover bricks have become valuable

Before this shortage, leftover bricks on a completed project often weren’t worth collecting. Once you counted a supplier’s restocking fee, cartage and the cost of sending someone to pick them up, it could be cheaper to dispose of them, and some simply ended up at the tip.

Now the opposite is happening. Leftover bricks are being advertised privately, people are buying and collecting surplus stock, and builders and bricklayers are keeping far closer track of what’s left on every job. Every pack can potentially keep another project moving.

Some builders are already moving away from double brick

Some of you will remember the old Midland Brick ad having a go at timber-framed houses, where someone knocks on the wall and all you hear is plasterboard. It’s a funny turn of events, because now there aren’t enough bricks to knock on.

Imports aren’t the only response. Some builders are looking at framed construction, and we’ve seen existing double-brick projects reconsidered and re-engineered into veneer systems because builders don’t believe they’ll secure enough masonry in the near future. From what we’re hearing, perhaps around 20 per cent of the builders looking for a solution are seriously exploring framing over the next one to two years rather than relying entirely on imported bricks.

That raises another question. If a significant part of the WA market moves toward steel or timber framing, those supply chains have limits too. Moving thousands of houses away from brick doesn’t mean there’s unlimited framing capacity waiting to absorb them. It shifts the demand somewhere else.

Imports are no longer plan B

The biggest change we’re seeing is that imported bricks are no longer just being discussed. Builders are buying them. We know of at least 15 builders actively looking at imported supply, and brick carters, project builders and boutique builders are all importing. Some are trying to secure enough product for years of construction.

The products we’re seeing and hearing about are coming from places including South Australia, India, Malaysia and China. Some stock is already in Australia and other shipments are on the way. Both standards and two-course bricks are being imported. The industry has moved on from asking whether it could import bricks to asking how many it can get.

What we’ve done at Sharp Bricklaying

We decided early that we didn’t want to wait and hope the market improved. Sharp Bricklaying is generally booked around three to five months ahead, and our current workload extends to approximately May. We have builders, employees and projects already committed, but being booked months ahead means very little if we arrive on site and there’s nothing to lay.

So we decided to secure our own supply. We’ve committed to purchasing 100,000 imported two-course bricks. The shipment is expected in December and the new year. It will arrive by container and be stored at our brick carter’s yard, and from there we can allocate it to our own private work and to builders we work with, and have it carted straight to site when it’s needed.

For us this does more than protect one or two jobs. Traditionally a bricklaying contractor is booked to lay whatever material the builder supplies. We can now potentially offer our builders both the labour and access to secured masonry supply. That gives us more control over continuity for our team, and gives our builders another option while supply is uncertain.

What are the imported bricks actually like?

We didn’t commit a large sum to a product we hadn’t seen. We physically inspected the two-course bricks before making the decision, obtained testing certification and reviewed their suitability.

The product can be used as either rough masonry or face brick depending on the project. Dimensionally it’s very similar to the local two-course products we’re used to, within a few millimetres, with a similar core configuration. The bricks are slightly heavier, and noticeably heavier once wet, although they appear to dry relatively quickly.

From a bricklayer’s point of view there’s no major difference in laying them. They don’t cut quite as cleanly as the local Maxibricks we’re used to, but with the right cutting equipment they cut perfectly acceptably. Based on what we’ve seen and the testing documentation provided, we don’t see any practical reason we wouldn’t use them on an appropriate project.

The biggest downside is cost. Imported masonry is more expensive, largely because of shipping, transport, fuel and handling. But the calculation for builders is changing. If paying more for bricks keeps a house progressing, while the alternative is a slab sitting empty for weeks or months, the cheapest brick isn’t necessarily the cheapest outcome.

Why WA ended up in this position

The simplest way to explain the shortage is capacity. Imagine a bakery with enough ingredients and staff to make 1,500 loaves a day, but only enough ovens to bake 1,000. Adding another baker doesn’t solve the problem. You need more ovens.

WA has been increasing housing construction without increasing brick manufacturing capacity at the same rate. Austral’s Cardup facility was mothballed in April 2023, which left Midland Brick as the only brickmaker in the state. Over the past decade, WA’s brick production has gone from 11 kilns to five. Midland Brick has also rationalised parts of its Middle Swan landholdings, with sections of the historic brickworks land proposed for future urban development.

At the same time, housing demand has increased sharply. According to the State Government, housing commencements have grown to more than 24,200 homes, around 19,500 of them detached, and detached commencements are up more than 50 per cent since Cardup was mothballed. That’s a big increase in demand on a supply chain with less spare manufacturing capacity than it once had.

Will reopening Cardup solve the shortage?

The announcement that Austral will recommission Cardup is clearly positive, and WA needs more brick manufacturing capacity. The State Government has committed up to $4 million to get the plant running again, with incentives tied to restarting by March 2027 and producing around 17 million Maxibricks within the first 12 months of operation. That has been described as potentially lifting WA’s brick production by around 10 to 15 per cent.

That sounds significant. But from the conversations we’re having across the industry, we don’t believe Cardup alone fixes the problem.

The first issue is commissioning. A mothballed plant doesn’t simply switch back on and start producing perfect bricks at full output. From what we’re being told, getting production back to consistent quality and volume is likely to take time, and we have serious doubts the plant will immediately produce the level of output being discussed. HIA WA chief executive Michael McGowan told the ABC there’s “going to be a little bit more time before these bricks become available”.

Even if it eventually reaches that target, there’s still demand. If builders are struggling to secure enough material today and commencements stay high, extra Cardup output may simply be absorbed by the existing shortfall. That’s why the reaction from many builders we speak with hasn’t been relief that they can stop worrying. It’s been good news, followed by the question of how many imported bricks they can still secure.

We don’t think this is a one-year problem

Christmas won’t help either. The holiday shutdown slows things down even further, and Cardup isn’t due back in production until around March 2027.

Our view is based on what we’re seeing first-hand and what we’re being told by builders, carters, distributors and other industry contacts. We don’t believe this disappears in six or twelve months. Without a significant increase in production, a major drop in demand, or a substantial shift to alternative construction methods, we think the industry could be dealing with brick supply issues for the next three to four years. In our view, imports are likely to become normal for at least the next two to three years. HIA’s Michael McGowan has said the home building industry will be “incredibly busy for the next three to four years”.

The builders we speak with who are getting ahead of it are already acting on that assumption. They’re buying stock, securing containers, looking at alternative products and planning two years ahead rather than two weeks. Others are still hoping local supply improves, which is a risky position to be in.

Smaller builders are especially exposed. They may not have the financial capacity of a large volume builder, they can’t necessarily afford to leave several slabs sitting dormant, and they can’t always absorb the cost of importing material without it hitting the project. Many also don’t have the buying history needed to secure a large allocation.

More workers don’t fix a materials shortage

WA is also bringing more skilled workers into construction to help with the housing shortage. That’s necessary, but it only solves one part of the equation. More bricklayers, carpenters, supervisors and trades can help build more homes, but those workers also need somewhere to live, and a bigger population adds to housing demand. If material production doesn’t increase at the same time, the bottleneck just moves.

It comes back to the bakery. You can bring in more bakers, but with the same number of ovens you still can’t produce enough bread. For WA housing to genuinely increase, labour, land, approvals, infrastructure and manufacturing capacity all need to move together.

What we think happens next

We don’t believe there’s a single solution. Cardup reopening will help. Imported bricks will help. Some builders moving to framed or veneer construction will take pressure off masonry demand, and existing manufacturers increasing production would help too. WA will probably need a combination of all of them.

From what we’re seeing, imported masonry is likely to become a much more normal part of WA residential construction. Once builders establish international supply chains, test products, organise freight and get comfortable using imported bricks, those supply chains don’t necessarily disappear when local production improves. The shortage may change how WA buys bricks for good.

Planning a build or an extension in 2027?

If you’re planning a new home or an extension, the shortage affects your choices. Broadly, there are three ways to build right now.

Double brick. Still possible, but expect longer waits and a bigger bill, and make sure the bricks are secured early.

Brick veneer. Brick on the outside with a timber or steel frame inside. You keep the brick look and use far fewer bricks.

Framed and clad. A timber or steel frame finished in cladding. It doesn’t need bricks at all.

Prices have moved too. Before the shortage a brick was costing around $1.30 to $2. Now it’s $3 to $4. Whichever way you go, talk to your builder before you lock in a design. Ask where the bricks are coming from, when they’ll arrive, and whether the price allows for them.

Our approach

Sharp Bricklaying’s approach is simple. We aren’t waiting to find out whether the problem fixes itself. We’re securing stock, talking to our builders early, sourcing alternatives, and planning our projects further ahead than we ever have, while keeping across what’s happening in every part of the industry. A lot of our builders are already set for materials on our large upcoming jobs, so our stockpile is there for our smaller boutique builders and our private work.

Over the last few months one thing has become very clear: having a project booked no longer guarantees you’ll have the bricks to build it. For an industry that has always relied on locally made masonry, that’s a major change, and from everything we’re seeing, it’s only the beginning.

Struggling to source Maxibricks for your project?

Have an upcoming extension or project and struggling to secure Maxibricks? Get in contact with us. We’re currently supplying our builders with allocated quantities from our own stockpile, while also reserving stock for our private projects.

We’re deliberately declining large-volume purchases to make sure we can continue accommodating the builders and clients we work directly with.

If you’re unsure what you’ll need, get in touch. We can run through the options available, work out what best suits your project and try to accommodate your budget as best we can.

Sources

• WA Government, Cook Government supports Cardup brickworks recommissioning, media statement, 29 September 2026.
• ABC News, Brick shortage prompts $4 million sweetener to get factory reopened, 29 September 2026.
• The Urban Developer, Brick Rationing Coming to WA as Supply Struggles to Keep Up, 18 September 2026.