We get it, as we too had the same issue way back when our experience was limited to household repairs. When we took the leap into full on renovations we didn't know where to start.

One of the most common routes to find the relevant professional trades is through word of mouth, a relative or a reference from a friend.

Right now, with people's desire to either renovate or simply make their homes a better place to live, the demand for trades is higher than ever.

With that in mind, we need to cast our net wider, and it's also a good idea to have choices in finding the perfect match for the job and also the right person to work with.

Back in our early days of renovating and flipping properties we were lucky enough to have a son-in-law builder (Lachlan).

We we're moving at a cracking pace and for some time Lachlan would finish one job for us and move straight on to the next, it was super easy and meant we didn't even need to consider sourcing any trades at all, Lachlan managed the lot.

When we took a six-month break from property flipping, Lachlan, our in-house family builder had to seek work elsewhere and got booked up. So, our trade search began.

We were lucky enough to stumble across hipages (the trade sourcing app) and have never looked back. The hipages app is all about finding the right trade for your needs - be it repairs, through to full blown renovations or building. It's easy to navigate and has the capacity to take some of the guess work out by asking you enough questions to lead you in the right direction for you search.

In our experience the more information you feed into your search, including photographs of your job, the more accurate your trade requirements match will be.

Most apps will guide you through this process and prompt you to provide the details. This also allows the tradie to not only decide if they are the right match, but to also quote more accurately on your job.

You may not be aware, but our amazing builders - Jason and Steve - who worked with us on our recent season of The Block, as well as our first Block build two years ago, came to us from a job brief we posted on hipages.

So with that in mind, don't think for a minute these sites are a place for second rate builders to seek work, Jason and Steve are among the best in the business, as are so many of our trades we've secured through hipages over the past 10 or more years.

While hipages works perfectly for us, they are not the only site in the area of trade searches, you actually have quite a few choices, so have a look at them all and decide for yourself which works best for you.

This is a list of the tradie search sites we are aware of, but we are sure there are more; Hipages.com.au; Tradiesonline.com.au; Service.com.au; Serviceseeking.com.au; Oneflare.com.au; Searchatradie.com.au

It's time to get started now if you want to be ahead of the game to get your trades locked in for the New Year.