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🎧 Real deals, real strategies, real results. Learn how to find, fund, and operate profitable property plays from someone who’s actually done it.
Hosted by Andrew Wright, principal of Professionals Southport and a commercial investor who rebuilt after losing a ~$15M portfolio during the GFC, this podcast gives you a straight-talking look at what it really takes to build wealth through property.
Each episode delivers practical frameworks, real deal breakdowns, and honest conversations with high-performing investors and operators across residential and commercial.
But it’s bigger than the episodes. The goal is to build a community of like-minded investors who share stories, swap insights, help each other grow and maybe even do deals together.
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📍 Connect with Andrew: hello@andrewwrightproperty.com.au
It's a bit of a funky site. Uh, it's on a busier road
Does it make you wanna dance or?
Yeah. You know, it does make me dance. I do like, like me subdivisions, mate. Everyone tries to do what we've done in 10 years, in two years- ... you know, sometimes, and that's where things can go wrong. Yeah. Because you can get in a lot of trouble in this game as well if you buy the wrong site.
I've had three quotes for a valuation, and I've just gone with the cheapest. Mm-hmm. And it's burnt me big time.
Before you do anything, find out what your deal box is. What, what do you actually want to do? Your town planner's your best friend. They're the cheapest consultant you'll ever buy.
It's the deals you walk away from maybe that can make such a big difference.
But yeah, 100%. I don't want someone that's just had blue skies. I wanna learn from their lessons so I don't have to go through the pain of learning, you know?
What's your process to actually go through with that?
What we tell people to do is
Hi, I'm Andrew Wright, Principal of Professional Southport, and this is the Andrew Wright Property Podcast. I've built a multi-million dollar property portfolio, delivering a seven-figure annual rental income, and led my real estate team through thousands of sale and lease transactions. In each episode, I share real deals and strategies that will help you find, fund, and operate profitable property deals.
The aim of this show is to provide education and build a community of like-minded investors who can collaborate, share insights, and help each other in each other's journeys. You can make excuses or you can make money, but you can't do both. So come and join us
Hello there and welcome back to the Andrew Wright Property Podcast. We are absolutely blessed to have a good friend of mine, Carson Bolt, back, and what we're going to do is we're gonna record a masterclass in land subdivision over several parts. Carson, welcome back and thank you for your time again.
No dramas, mate.
Thanks for having us back on.
Now, I, I, I just wanna talk about why we're recording a few extra episodes here now Land subdivision is, is just such a great idea, and I wanna talk about Economics 101. So I go down to Woolies most days and, uh, I buy these little tiny Coke Zero bottles in small little bottles, and I pay a lot more for them than the big bottles.
You can go and buy a big bottle of Coke or Coke Zero, and you get it at a lot cheaper rate per-
Mm ...
100 mils. They actually, actually document in Woolies how much you're paying per mil.
Yep.
Land Economics 101 is exactly the same thing. You can go and buy 40 acres of rural land, and if you can subdivide it into four 10 acre lots, in most markets, it's highly likely that you're gonna get a lot higher rate per acre when you subdivide them, and that's what Carson does.
That's exactly what he does. So- Yeah ... Carson, before we go into the podcast, um, have you got any new deals? You've got a lot of sites on the go, which we covered in the last podcast. Have you got any new ones that you've acquired?
Yeah, we've picked up a couple. We got a 10-lot acreage subdivision we've tied up in Canungra in Scenic Rim.
So I love the acreage product. Uh, so yeah, we're just getting the DA together at the moment. Hopefully we'll have it lodged in the next 30 days. We've got a settlement in December. Um, we're recording this in August at the moment, so we've got a bit of time to get it. It's not gonna be approved in that timeframe, but at least we'll, um, we'll get the majority of it through, and then we've only got to hold it for, you know, three or four months until we, um, can roll into construction finance.
So-
What's the ad- uh, dimensions of that site? Land size, how many lots are you gonna get, purchase price?
Yep. So five hectares, um, so 50,000 square meters. We'll get 10 one-acre lots essentially out of it. Um, purchase price 2.7, and we're looking for, you know, a, a gross realization around the nine, give or take.
So, uh, yeah, acreage land in that area is high demand. The... It's got a beautiful creek running out the back of it. Probably five of the lots will have nice running creek on the back of the lots, and some of the other ones will be quite nice elevated lots. So it's a, it's a bit of a funky site. Uh, it's on a busier road.
Does it make you wanna dance or?
Yeah . You know, it does make me dance. I do like, like me subdivisions, mate. So no, it's a, it's a good site, but we've got a major road, so we've gotta do, like, turn in, you know, deceleration lanes and acceleration lanes. So there's, it's a little bit complicated, and we've got a, um, a big acoustic fence along the front we've gotta do.
But- Uh, council don't want an acoustic fence, we're gonna build it out of dirt, like a, like a land bund, if you like. Uh, just so it's a bit more, um, aesthetically pleasing for, for people driving past instead of a, a massive big wall. So, um, yeah, little things like that you find out through pre-lodgement, which is why they're important.
Okay. So the plan at the moment, 2.7 purchase, selling for, uh, 9 million gross realisable.
Yep.
Um, if you were to get a small blowout in cost, how much do you think maybe you should be budgeting for on the, on all the works before you can sell those?
Uh, civils, we've got roughly 200 a lot in there, 180 to 200 I think.
Like 2 mil?
Yep. Give or take. Yep.
So thr- 3 million including stamps 2 million improvements, that's five, and you're expecting up to nine.
Yeah. So
you got- Plus some selling costs.
Um- Yeah, selling costs- Yeah ... and obviously council contributions and holding costs- Yeah ... and GST and all the rest. It's the, your back of the envelope's never as pretty as the, the real numbers.
Yeah. But yeah, it'll be, still be a good- Mm ... healthy project. We can... You know, we like to shoot for those kinda 30% margins, and it's pretty close to that. Mm. So, um, should be a
nice project. Because it's a difficult site, other people might not wanna take it on, but you have the skill set around those slopes and the civils- Mm
to actually add the value. And what's even more exciting for me when I talk to you is that this is just one of multiple deals you got running at the same time. So- Mm ... you compound a million here and a million there, and, uh- Yeah ... it's gonna be exciting to see how it all pans out in three or four years' time when a lot of these ones have, you've exited.
Yeah. No, you know what? We love it. We love, you know... It's, it's a great, um, business to be in, but at the same time I get a real kick out of getting a, you know, manky, overgrown block. There's lantana all over- ... there's weeds. It's just, it was left, literally left untouched for, for decades. Um, a lady's been agisting and she's sorted some of it, but there's weeds overgrown.
Once we slash it- Mm ... and make it look pretty and everyone's got these nice little blocks on the back of the creek, yeah, I get, uh, get quite excited just to, to kinda see the transformation along the way as well. I get a real kick out of that. Um, and then yeah, we picked up another project down in Byron. Uh, probably a bit of a riskier project for us, uh, but we bought it really well.
The, the vendors wanted eight. We've picked it up for 3-75, um, inc of GST, and, uh, we got a bit of a delayed settlement to December as well. So, uh, the first one we just mentioned, Kananga, we're actually doing that as a joint venture because we're pretty tapped out at the moment. And this one in, um, Bangalow, down near Byron, it's a great little town.
Uh, a lot of slope though, and we've got a, a water main which is a million dollars we have to move. And so I think the com- those two things scared a lot of people off. Mm. Plus Bangalow's just difficult. They, um, they like to vocalize their hatred for developers and, and drag things out. But council have been pretty proactive recently, so we're a little bit more bullish.
But we've got, you know, a nice plan for that. So it'll be a subdivision, some townhouses, and probably, um, some units as well. Do a bit more of an affordable product, uh, because I wanna de-risk the site. At least I know that if I do something more affordable instead of going to Byron and trying to do these amazing designs like everyone does, we want to hit affordable market where if the local market doesn't want it, we know investors will take it, and that's basing it on a, a minimum 4.5% gross yield.
We know if we can get that, then the investors are going to be interested as well. So it just gives us extra exits, which is what we want.
Yeah Mate, uh, Unemployable Property, you have a mentorship program. Mm-hmm. You've got, uh, a number of students there that you're assisting. Have you got any good deals to talk about?
Like, this has only been going a short number of months. Mm. Have any of your students picked up any deals?
Yeah, some cracking deals. Um, actually creating competition for myself. Uh, as one of the ones I had saved, one of, and I just hadn't got around to ringing the agents, the, uh They end up buying it and, uh, I- I've got a rule that
if they- Did you up their fees, their monthly fees?
I've got a rule that if, if someone rings me before I've contacted the agent, then it's off the table for me. And, uh, if I've already contacted them, then it's fair game. So I've just said to the guys, that's, everyone knows that, and, you know, to their credit, they jumped on it. Like, like I say to all our guys, the only benefit we have to the, the big end of town developers is speed, you know?
So-
Mm.
You know, you've just got to make offers quick. 100%. They're so clunky and they're slow, a lot of these bigger groups. They've got to have five board meetings before they do anything. Agreed.
Agreed.
Whereas if you can do something and jump on it pretty quick, some people just wanna get a deal done.
Mm.
And, um, this was one of those instances. They got a fantastic deal and she, she just typed the deal, didn't have the funds to do it, and another, um, couple from our group, uh, funding the project for her, and they're splitting the profits and it's, you know, it's a phenomenal project. They're gonna... It's, like, sitting at 50% profit on cost.
What
sort of deal, man?
So 13 lots in, uh, Logan.
Yep.
Uh, a lot of it has, uh, street frontage as well, so the civils are a lot less 'cause the road's already there.
Yep.
And there'll be a few battle axes at the back. So it's kind of the perfect first project 'cause the civils aren't too heavy. They're gonna get a really big uplift just on getting the DA.
Uh, they'll probably get, you know, almost enough to fund through the project. It's, it's quite funny. They, they got it, got it refinanced for the, um... Sorry, they got it valued for, uh, for the settlement because they're not gonna be quite approved, and they only got a couple hundred grand uplift, and they were like, they, they made the comment, "It's like someone said our baby was ugly"-
'cause they didn't quite get what they thought w- you know- Yeah ... the uplift. And they will get that uplift once it's approved, but when it's not quite approved it's, it's hard for- Yeah ... anyone to justify that uplift. Absolutely. But it's a, it's a cracking project. It's one I wish I was on. You might wanna
tell them they get a second valuation too.
Mm. Sometimes valuers can be miles apart.
Oh, 100%. Yeah. We've, we've had that and, uh, yeah, it's, it's a funny game, the, the valuation side of things, but at the end of the day they've got to be conservative for the banks, and they're the ones that get sued if things go wrong. True. True. So there's always that balancing act and, yeah, you've gotta, you've almost got to interview your valuers.
So, like, I, well, I'm just engaging one at the moment. I've said, "Look, these are the comps that I think. Can you, before we engage, can you kind of give me some indication that you kind of agree with these numbers?" Good advice. So I don't, I don't wanna spend the 10 grand. Yeah. Or the other thing is you can actually spend 60% of the valuation to get a draft, and you don't have to pay the other 40% unless it comes in where you think.
So make sure you have that conversation because there's no point spending the full 10-
Yep ...
if, you know, you might burn six, which still sucks, but it's still better than burning 10. Mm. So.
And what, that advice you've just provided is so much more valuable than in the past I've had three quotes for a valuation and I've just gone with the cheapest- Mm-hmm
and it's burnt me big time just going with the cheapest valuation on some, some occasions- Mm ... where the valuation just wasn't anywhere near where it sh- I wish I had have paid for the more expensive valuation.
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. S- I mean, I know people that have just, uh, they've even put the tenants up in a hotel room, furnished the, the tenancy, and because the first valuation came in really low and the second one came in, like, an extra 150,000 below- Mm-hmm
and that's a pretty expensive exercise to do. That's probably- Yeah ... cost them 10 grand for, to, to do that. Staging, yeah. But they got the uplift to get into the deal that they want and they made hundreds of thousands out of that deal. It's just- Yeah ... once again, when you're, when you're thinking like a developer, you gotta do what you gotta do to, to get it over the line.
And whether you like it or not, value is a human and it's not a perfect science. No. So, like, y- y- it's your job to make sure you meet the valuer on site and give them c- you know, some of the comps that you know, um, are probably accurate because they're probably gonna, you know, they could potentially miss things, so it's, it's good to get on the front foot and, um, try and hold their hand.
Mm. Um, and do you have a- another, uh, client success story that they may have just got under contract? Just one more before we get onto the podcast.
Actually, w- uh, Sam that's joined us now, his f- first couple deals were great little projects. He was a project manager. Uh, he's very, very switched on young man, but he still was just, you know, lacking that confidence to kind of pull the trigger on the, on the deal, and I think, uh, plus he wanted to use a third party to, you know, investor to, to fund the projects.
So he found, once again, found a, a couple within our group to, to fund the, the project and, you know, he's, he did a little 10 townhouse project, uh, in, in Victoria in, in Melbourne, and they got another one in regional Victoria which is a little five-lot subdivision. It's all got road frontage each lot, which is, like, the perfect first project once again because it's just really simple civils.
You're not gonna have huge, big blowouts. I think, you know, typically, I think in Southeast Queensland, the average per lot civils, I think Colliers did a report, don't quote me, it was like 186,000 a lot to- Mm ... to create a, uh, a new, uh, subdivision, whereas I think that they're doing it for about 25 or 30,000 a lot because it's literally just the sewer water, power's all pretty much there and it's just tapping into each one.
It's already got each block's got its own road frontage, and it's just a very, very simple subdivision. So that's why when people say, "How much is it per lot?" It's like, well, it depends. Mm. There's, you know, 30, and we've got done ones where it's, you know, 250,000- Mm ... 'cause we've had to import a lot of fuel, so, or have a lot of retaining.
So it's, um, how long's a piece of string, I suppose. But, uh- Yeah ... yeah, that, that's a great little project as well to just cut your teeth, learn the process, understand what, you know, all the acronyms and things that get thrown around in a lot of these groups.
Yep.
Like for me, that's where the learnings happen when you're actually doing your first little deal and you don't wanna- Mm
overextend. Uh, uh, unfortunately, a lot of coaching clients will look at where we are now and try and jump straight there. It's just like, do a couple little... Even if you've got the money- Mm ... do a couple of small little deals, learn the process, and then you can scale pretty quickly. If everyone tries to do what we've done in 10 years and two years-
you know, sometimes, and that's where things can go wrong. Yeah. Because you can get in a lot of trouble in this game as well if you buy- Yeah ... the wrong site. So it's not something to, um, to mess around with. But if, if you get it right, it can be incredibly lucrative.
Mm. Yeah. What, what I've picked up from, um, Carson there is, uh, particularly the big street frontage, is it avoids if you've got a skinny long deep block, you've got to build a road all the way down there, and you've got to dig holes for all the utilities to go all the way down the back.
And not only that extra cost, but it actually takes away some of the usable site down the back to actually build on, so-
Mm ...
uh, what Carson's saying there is, uh, incredibly valuable. Let's go into part one of the Land Subdivision Masterclass with, um, coach, uh, developer, and mentor, Carson Bolt. And part one is simply, can I subdivide my land?
So We're gonna talk about, uh, every property being different. Um, we've got council, uh, zoning maps. Mm. We've got overlays. Carson, what do you look for when, when one of your clients comes along and says, "Oh, Carson, I'm looking at this subdivision site. Is this a deal or no deal?" Mm. What's your process to actually go through with that client or men- student of yours as to whether a deal makes sense?
Yeah. What we tell people to do is, before you do anything, find out what your deal box is. What, what do you actually want to do? So, um, we suggest starting with like a small little subdivision, maybe from three to, you know, eight lots, because one and a two is, are very difficult to stack up. There's just not enough margin in them.
That three to maximum kind of 10, uh, you, what you wanna do is f- go find 10 of those that have already been done in your area- Mm ... and then go reverse engineer it. And, and by that I mean look up who the town planner was. Like here in Queensland, you, you've got, um, PD Online. In New South Wales, you got DA Tracker.
You can actually... It's incredible, you can actually find all of the consultants that worked on that project. Talk to, if you, if it's a, if it's a little subdivision, find out who the town planner was, the engineer. The engineer should be able to put you onto who the civil contractor was. Find out what things cost.
And if you reverse engineer and run a feaso on those projects, if you do that three to 10 times, you'll get a pretty good feel of, you know, what works, how m- what's the minimum lot size in that area. And the, the best advice we ever got was go buy a town planner's time in your areas that you wanna work on and, and basically get an understanding of what things, you know, wh- what areas you can subdivide, what the process is, what the timeframes are And understand what the minimum lot size is.
So we, once our students have, have done all that, then you wanna get a cheat sheet. So in your era- area, you have, you know, the, the minimum lot sizes for each of the different zonings. So you can very quickly look at it and go, okay, it's, you know, on the Gold Coast where we're sitting at the moment, minimum lot size for low density residential is 600.
We know we can do a, a-- On a corner block, we can get that down to 400s. So we know that if we wanna do a three-lot subdivision, you can just put into realestate.com, you know, looking at lots over, you know, 1,800 square meters because I wanna do a minimum three-lot subdivision. So, 'cause I need 600s, you know. So it's just once you know the parameters of what you're looking for, your town planner's your best friend.
They're the cheapest consultant you'll ever, you'll ever buy, and it's-- and they've got the, the key to every other consultant. If you need a, an acoustic specialist, a stormwater guy, they, they'll tell you, "These are all the issues that we have, and these are the five consults we need to engage," and they'll have a recommendation for the most part for all of those.
If you, if you pick a good planner, and like I said once again, hopefully you've already interviewed your three town planners in your, in your deal box of what you wanna do because you've reverse engineered enough projects and sat down with enough planners, you'll get a really good idea. If you've done that exercise enough, you know, by the end of that process, you'll know kind of roughly what the minimum lot size and bits and pieces.
Mm.
So when you look at a, a site, then I use like a product like Stash for me. So I, I use this, that subscription, go on, look it up, have a look at the overlays, and then I'll-- there's a little, um, tab there where you can actually draw up a bit of a subdivision. You can scratch up, you know, 600 lots, and that's a very rough version that I can do, and then I'll take my assumptions.
You gotta do some work. You can't just bombard your town planner. They're trading- Mm-hmm ... time for money at the end of the day. So do some work, do some due diligence, so they can see that you're not just a tire kicker. Mm. And then send them an email and say, "Look, I think I can get four lots out of this." Am I cr- right?
You know? Mm. And I like to work with town planners that have kind of left a bigger firm and started their own little business. They're hungry for- Yeah ... for customers and growing their business, and you're not just a, a number. Yeah. And they're gonna give you good customer service. I'd ra- that's why I wanna shop around as well and just- Yeah
find someone that, you know, is happy to help.
It's so interesting, uh, learning, I mean, there are a lot of sites even on the Gold Coast that are in a zoning area that permits subdevelopment, but just because you can subdivide doesn't mean you should or that it makes sense. And- Mm ... I remember my town planner that I first used for a development site said, "Andrew, I wanna buy a subdivision site."
And as an agent, I had a, a house in, uh, Johnson Street, Southport. I said, "Come and have a look at this one. Maybe this one will suit you." And we had a look at it and I, I hadn't, I had never even thought about these issues or constraints of a site. It was zoned appropriately for a duplex. Mm-hmm. But when we went through there, there was a bus stop on the footpath-
Mm-hmm
and there was a big tree, and at the end of the day, he said, "Yes, well, you can subdivide this if you just use the one existing driveway." But for him, he really wanted to have... It was a, it was a wide street frontage, and he was really only interested if he could have two driveways-
Mm ...
two separate addresses with two post boxes because that what, that's what attracted the premium price-
Mm-hmm
for two blocks instead of having one right down the back. So- I'd never thought about that. Oh yeah, there is a bus stop there. And I said, "Well, what's the process to move it?" He said, "Oh, well, you can actually negotiate with council to move it, but good luck if you tell them, 'Oh, can you move this bus stop to next door?'
Because next door has to agree with it." Mm. And then there's the cost involved with moving the bus stop. And as a novice, e- even as a novice real estate agent 15 years ago, I just never even thought- Mm ... of those constraints.
Yeah. 100%. You, you nailed it. I mean, another one is just the slope away from the road.
Just- Mm ... storm water, um, you know, you got to have to get permission if it falls away from the road to, to get storm water out through the neighboring properties, or you've got to come up with a, another solution there. So that's why a lot of the blocks falling to the road is a lot better. Poo doesn't go uphill either, so if you're doing multiple projects, you gotta- you might need, I mean, mu- multiple lots or even dwellings.
You're gonna have to have- Mm ... a pump to get it back up to the road if it falls away from the road. Little things like that, you just, from a planning perspective, it works. But from an engineering perspective, it doesn't. So there's a lot of little things that, you know, easements and sewer that runs through the site and little- Mm
things. Once again, um, my very first subdivision that we did, um, thankfully I had, um, s- just started hanging out with Shannon at that point, and I said, "Look, this is already approved. What do you think?" And he's like, "That power line's gonna be a problem." I was like, "It's already DA approved." He's like, "Doesn't matter."
Like- Mm ... it was just hanging too low, and it cost us, like, 30 grand to get it, um, uh, put another pole in to tighten the lines up because we went to Energex and said, "Hey, your lines are too low." They're like, "No, because for the whole, at the moment, it's only one lot in, in, in between those two poles. The sag is at the appropriate height.
Just because it's too low here, if you want to create a new dwelling and put a, a driver, that's your problem now. You pay for it." Yeah. Wow. And they've got you by the short and curlies because they're the only ones that can do it. So whatever the price is that they come up with, that's it- Wow ... because no private contractor can work on it, so.
Yeah. So part of the reason why I've, I've got Carson on this podcast is he can just add so much value to people if you're looking for a mentor. And even just then, I, I got frustrated listening to him just then because I, I paid for a subdivision, uh, a survey, a l- plan, a surveyor to go out and do a subdivision plan at a site in Ipswich, spent all the money, and then went after that to ask the neighbor if I could connect to his sewer because it went down and he just, the f- answer was just no.
Mm.
And I just wasted all my money. But if I had someone like Carson to look at that, he probably would've said, "Well, before you go pay the surveyor- Mm ... make sure you can connect the sewer." Even after that event, maybe, I don't know if you can remember this, Carson, but maybe, uh, six months ago, I rang you, hitting you up to do a joint venture with me.
Mm-hmm. And it was a site that already had a development approval to subdivide a rural lot into resi, and next to it was a large industrial lot where they were gonna have an unmanned diesel tank, a truck parking depot, and a landscaping area. And- Carson didn't want to do that project with me for multiple reasons.
One, he had too much on his plate. Uh, two, it wasn't his niche asset class, I don't think. It was more industrial than resi. Three, the strategy wasn't his main strategy. He likes-- Up till now, he's, um, liked to sell the end projects, put the money in the bank and move on, whereas I like to buy and hold. So our values weren't aligned there, so he didn't wanna be involved with me.
And, um I didn't go ahead with that site, that investment after talking, even though I didn't employ Carson for a consultant for 18 months, the fact that I wanted him as my joint venture partner, I hit him up, and the reason I walked away was none of those three issues. It was because he said, "Oh, Andrew, I grew up in a regional area, and I think the gross, uh, rent that you're anticipating on this hardstand in that area, there's a big question mark on whether you can achieve that."
And we talk about not being a pioneer in real estate, and Carson just mentioned before you want to see some other developments that have been successful, and he sort of said, "Well, Andrew, is there, are there any other industrial sites in that town where you're getting that amount of-
Hmm ...
rent per square meter for hardstand?"
And I said, "Well, no, it's the first one." And getting that advice from Carson, I walked away from the project, thank God. Now, it may well have turned out all right, we don't know, but- Hmm ... it's the deals you walk away from maybe that can make such a big difference.
Oh, but yeah, 100%. Like I spend 95% of my time crushing out coaching clients' dreams where they think they've found a good project and-
I wish I had it too.
Like I, I- ... bloody Carson's ruined my dreams.
And but, you know, you're gonna lose a lot of money in this game. And, and, you know, I've, every mentor that I've paid for along the way, I've, I've made sure every single one of them, actually every single one of them has gone bankrupt at one point in time because I want someone that, I don't want someone that's just had blue skies.
I wanna learn from- Hmm ... their lessons so I don't have to go through the pain of learning them, you know? So I love, you know, learning from other people's mistakes and, you know, I think a lot of, uh, you know, projects, people get blue sky, you know, they start thinking about the numbers. I, I, I think one of the easiest things for me is actually to take all the emotion out of it, but I find a lot of people, you know, they'll talk to one agent and they'll get a number and they're like, "Well, okay, the agent said I'm gonna get 650."
I had a, a coaching client recently just pulled out of one, and I was like, "Though that block, that's all the money and some. Like you, you think you're gonna get 650, uh, thousand for that block?" I said, "I think you're about 150 grand over." So I said, "I cannot see comps or there might be like one block- Mm-hmm
that's an outlier, and just because the guy waited 18 months to get that price, you can't use that as a comparable. You're gonna wait 18 months and you've got six blocks to sell? You'll be there for y- you know, a decade trying to move through this stuff." Yeah. So you've got to think a little bit longer about it's not just what are you gonna get, it's like what's the sales rate of these things?
Because if you've got 10 or if you've got 20 and you're only selling one every four months, it's, uh, the interest will eat you alive. So-
Hmm ...
yeah.
Carson, you mentioned before that a lot of the times the, the one into twos, uh, don't pencil out, but-
Mm-hmm ...
if we can just spend the next little section here talking about the smaller sites, because a lot of people- might wanna, you know, learn through that process by, by not spending too much on a site.
So let's just talk about a small site where there's a house on it.
Mm-hmm.
And the options are, are multiple. You can just, um, uh, renovate that house and subdivide and maybe, you know, sell the land at the back.
Yep.
You can renovate the house, subdivide and build a new dwelling on the back.
Mm-hmm.
Um, or you can demolish the house, just sell the t- two or three lots, um, or you can demolish the house and, um- sell one, one, one of the blocks or two of the blocks to come up with enough cash to actually just end up with a brand-new house for yourself.
So-
Mm.
Have you gone... I mean, I imagine that with your students already in the last six or 12 months, you've looked at several of these scenarios.
Yeah.
H- what's your process there for working out? And I guess it depends on the person's individual- Yeah ... ability to raise capital as well. And
it's also what they're trying to achieve, like what's their balance sheet.
If, if you came to me with that scenario- Mm ... and said, "Hey, Carson, what do you think?" It's like, don't even book in a call until you've done four feasos on every single scenario, five feasos. Like, I wanna see every single scenario.
Yep.
And then what, what are we trying to achieve? Like what, what are you... And then it's zooming out, go, "What are your actual goals here?"
Because for everyone it's different. Some people can be doing $10 million to $10 million deals. Some people sh- should only be doing $200,000 deals, you know. So, uh, so that's probably the starting point, and then it's like, okay, what, what do we wanna do here? Once again, you, you wanna hold, so you, it might make sense for you to sell down a, you know, the existing house and one of the lots and, you know, keep a block at the back and build a duplex on it or build a, um, a rooming house.
Why, why build a house and get 4 or 5% gross yield when you can build a rooming house that's, like a little bit more expensive and then get basically double the yield?
Yep.
So that's why we, um, have people like Kevin Dooney and stuff on, on our podcast because we want people to think outside the box, you know, not just do the status quo of what everyone else is doing.
Yep.
So once again, it's just going through, um, the different scenarios and work out, you know, what's, what's actually... I'm very unemotional about it. So it's like, what does the feaso say? Which, what's... And as long, it's not about which one makes the most profit, because we've had other scenarios where we've actually changed the DA for, you know, 22 townhouses and turn it into 14 lots, which actually made it less yield, but the margin was better.
The actual end number was lower, but the risk was sig- significantly less because we didn't have, you know, a $8 million, $10 million, you know, construction budget and, you know. There's, there's just so much more risk involved with the built form and escalations- Mm ... and bits and pieces. So you've got to factor in what your risk profile is as well.
So it's just a process of elimination. Y- and you go through all the different scenarios, and sometimes the feasos tell you pretty quickly which one you do. It's not until you actually do that exercise, then the, the student will come back and go, "Actually, I've already got rid of th- three scenarios. It's just these two we want to talk about now."
So
yeah. I- in those really basic form, uh, feasibilities, when you do have an existing house there, sometimes it might be right in the middle of a lot and it just doesn't allow you to use the land to subdivide, so-
Mm
How much does it actually cost, in your experience, to move that house? As... I mean, some people will actually pick it up on a big truck and go and just sell it.
Mm.
Um, others will demolish it. Others will actually move it to the front side to allow a four-meter driveway on the side, and-
Mm ...
the costs of reconnecting the water and the sewer. Have you got any really basic numbers just for a little, a little house? I know there are no-
Yeah ...
concrete numbers, but...
I, I think you can slide a house.
Don't quote me on these numbers, 'cause I've, I've had some quotes for... I've never actually relocated a house. I've sold plenty of houses and- Yeah ... you know, I've been paid 35 grand for someone to pick up and take a house away, and then they'll do the site clean as well, as opposed to paying 30, $40,000 for the demo.
Mm.
And then, you know, it's actually money in your pocket. So if you've got an old Queenslander, you can actually make some money, so that's something to think about. You might, you might have it as a line item to demo it, and it could actually be something that you make money on. Uh, but to slide it and to reconnect it, it's probably 70, 80 grand still to, to- Still a lot
of
money.
Yeah, 'cause you gotta r- it's the stumps, to re-stump the house. Yeah, right. Like, 'cause you can only slide obviously the old Queenslanders. Um, to put all the stumps in, hook it up into services, uh, the, the, the contractors are not cheap. That, that could be a bit overkill, but, like, I wouldn't be... If I was doing a rough fees, I would probably plug something in like that and then go get some quotes, so...
And when, when you do... If someone does that, Carson, is it fair to say that, uh, the certifier for a new dwelling at the front, if you knock down a house, um, you have to completely do all the utilities again, or is there any value in existing water connections or the certifier won't let you use 20-year-old...?
Uh, look, a lot of the old systems you can tap into, uh, so you might need to do...
The connections, even if you're doing a new connection on the same line, like, they're not that expensive really. Okay. So yes, you might have to do a little upgrade. And every time you, you d- that's the other thing with the house, you got to come up to the new code. So when you slide it, you, you- Oh, yeah ... you know, all your electrical and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, right. Mm. So that's the things. Gotcha. It's the same as when you're doing, um, strata titling for units. You might have s- six units in a complex that have been there forever. As soon as you go to strata title it, now you've got to comply with all the, the, um, fire, new fire rating- Mm ... and all the n- electrical stuff, and they're the things that people always miss.
Um, but in that scenario that you gave Pretty much when you're doing small subdivisions, in most scenarios you're gonna wanna, unless you're doing like high-end houses in a, in a really good suburb, you're gonna wanna keep that house even though it might be a bit of a, um, an eyesore, just, you know, tidy up.
We don't renovate inside typically, we just make the outside look good so it looks like it belongs in the estate. Mm. 'Cause if I'm buying that block, I'm, I don't wanna see this, you know, clapped out old house- Yeah ... and you don't know what someone's gonna do. So we try and tidy up, do a bit of gardens. Yeah.
Um, but too many people watch The Block and think they're gonna make squillions on a renovation, so we just, um, don't renovate the inside unless it's really warrants it- Yeah ... and then, you know, sell the rest of it off.
Carson, talking about connecting utilities, you've done quite a few deals and, um, I've seen on social media some examples of developers where they've gotten all these approvals and, um, when they go to connect the utilities, the actual council mains is not where that's supposed to be or where it says it is on the council maps.
Mm.
And as I understand it, you've got to have a certain amount of fall to go down to some of these connections, and if it's not where it's supposed to be, that can create massive extra costs. Have you seen any of that in real life?
Yeah. You need- You can't trust the, the plans that council have. So you can do a dial before you dig, and the sewer line says it's here.
Like, if, if you're, especially if it's, say, you know, your block slopes around, you go... might have a, a stormwater pit or a sewer pit in the back, as part of your due diligence, go get a vac truck, pothole it, so they actually get a vac truck and suck, and you actually go down and then you survey and pick it up, make sure it's actually there.
Mm-hmm. Because a lot of the time it's a, you know, so it might be a few thousand dollar exercise, but yeah, your s- your surveyor and the vac truck guys, and you actually, you know, check that it's all there. And, uh, yeah, you need to do that homework, because I've had one recently, um, in Tweed where we had the, um, the, we thought the sewer line was running in the road verge, and it was in the middle of the road.
So, uh, we can still, you know, drill and tap into it, but you know, we were sitting there cutting all these lines trying to find this sewer line and it wasn't there. So-
Mm ...
yeah, you definitely wanna do that for your detailed design. Sometimes it's fine, it just might be a little bit, few extra dollars. But if your, if, if your development's contingent on that, those services being in there, especially if it's on the back of the block or, or running through the block, you still wanna just pick it up as part of your due diligence because there's been some horror stories, unfortunately.
Yeah. I've, I've had a... Actually, I know another educator, one of his, uh, deals that he had, the... It was that she- they looked at the, the plans and they were like, "Okay, the, the sewer line's deep enough for just to grade the sewer into it." They didn't actually pick it up, and when they went, they got it a, um... And when they went to do the approval, when they did vac it, it wasn't as deep as they thought.
So, you know, it's a massive expense to kind of relocate and, you know, drop those sewer lines in, and some- sometimes you can't even make that work. So, uh, unfortunately for them, it actually Yeah, was they lost a lot of money on that project, so- Yeah, right ... uh, yeah, it's definitely, definitely one of those things you wanna tick off as part of your DD.
Mm.
Okay, Carson, so just coming into some, uh, rapid fire questions. Mm-hmm. Um, do you always prefer corner lots where you might get a two separate addresses to rear subdivisions?
For a small project, yeah. Like it... The, the problem is, so does everyone else, so it's one of these things- And you pay more for it.
Yeah, so y- your flat corner block, every man and his dog wants to do it. You're, you're competing with builders and, and, you know, they can make a margin on the build as well. So your, your, your multi-titled, you know, lots and your, your corner blocks, that's like the easiest part of development, so typically there's gonna be a lot of competition there.
So yeah, fantastic. If you can get one, um, for the right price. My, my, my second project I ever did was a corner block in Benowa. Houses to one side and got an approval for a second dwelling on the other side. Like they're, they're just no-brainers. Nice, easy, it's a good way to cut your teeth.
Yeah.
It's just whether they make money or not.
What's the number one, like, red flag or things that people should look out for to stop them getting a site that actually makes sense, not just getting approval to subdivide, but a- actually make money?
Uh, once again, running a f- a detailed feasibility- Yeah ... and getting someone to look over it. If you're, if you're not getting a mentorship, j- just find another developer and, uh- Mm
pay them for their time or, or get a builder or get a civil contractor to look over it before you go unconditional. Just do as much due diligence as you can, because your feasibility's only as good as the numbers you're putting in it at the end of the day. Your feaso can look, can look great on paper, but if you, if, if all your numbers are out, then, uh, yeah, it's not gonna make any money.
Okay, Carson. So, um, in the next, um, master class in land subdivision with, uh, Carson, we're gonna talk about, uh, the four different ladders, what I call the property development value add ladder. And, uh, Carson is, uh, gonna run through the different stages of a land subdivision where at every milestone you have the option to either sell it as is or add a bit more value before you pass it on and exit the strategy.
Mm. Carson, how can, um, the viewers get in touch with you if they want some more advice about your leadership and, and, uh, education?
Uh, Unemployable Property, so if you just chuck that in Google or socials, you'll, you'll find us. So be there somewhere.
Mate, I've left this right till the end of the podcast, but every time I'm looking at you now, I keep seeing this little eagle on your hat, and my understanding is that you're the only person in Australia that's proudly wearing a hat like that.
Can you tell us what that's all about? Yeah.
Pretty brave at the moment. Yeah, I'm a, a tragic West Coast Eagles supporter and, um, yeah, it's been f- five years in the d- dungeon, mate, in the bottom of the ladder. But, uh, it's only up from here, so it's all good. We're, um, we're, uh, we're tanking to get the, the good picks and then we'll, um, we'll have a crack next year.
Good on you. Thanks, Carson. We'll be back for the second part in this master class real soon. Thank you.
No worries.
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