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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.
🔗 Join the community & learn more - leave your email at: www.andrewwrightproperty.com.au
📍 Connect with Andrew: hello@andrewwrightproperty.com.au
When you see your old man do stuff, even if they fail, it sort of takes away your, y- you being scared. My dad's nothing special. I mean, if he can do it , like, you know what I mean? Like, my dad's just a normal person. And so I was sort of blessed to sort of grow up getting that knowledge and, and mentorship from him.
Most people think property development is about building houses. Josh Duce's strategy is different. We're trying to
foresee the future, where do we think is gonna keep increasing in value, or what, what's looking good? Gladstone's obviously been known as a boom and bust town.
The future of property intelligence and AI.
We have some software which, at the time of recording, is not famous yet. Talk about your new project. Yeah, so for the last 10
years I've used council mapping websites, other third-party websites, and I've always had issues with every single one of them. So we said, "Look, why don't we create our own software that anyone can use?"
Biggest mistake or lesson that you've learned?
Yeah, great question. Uh, I would probably say, like
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, and welcome back to the Andrew Wright Property Podcast. Today, we're talking about how developers make millions before construction even starts. Most people think property development is about building houses. Josh Duce's strategy is different. He creates value through planning, rezoning, approvals, and structuring deals with minimal upfront capital before construction even begins.
This episode is about finding off-market sites, controlling large development land with low capital, increasing land value through DA uplifts, and understanding how sophisticated developers think about planning risks and exits Josh focuses on 10 to 15 hectare sites, which for mum and dad listeners, that's, uh, th- that's big.
That's, uh, 10,000 square meters to 50,000 square meters of land to put it into perspective. He's age 30, which is the most impressive thing about this discussion because at that age you haven't had time to, uh, accumulate $100 million of cash to buy these sites, but he's thinking big, getting big deals done because of his education.
Today's guest is probably one of the most interesting developers on the Gold Coast because he's done something around what most investors don't understand, creating massive value in land before you even start construction. Josh specializes in these off-market development sites, locking them up on long settlements or option agreements, securing development approvals, and then exiting projects to large developers, often for millions of dollars in uplift.
Josh, thanks for joining the podcast.
Thanks for having me on, Andrew.
Mate, can you just get us started on, on how you got into property? And you told me before about, uh, one of your mentors being your father. I'd love to, for you to explain to the audience how you got into property.
Yeah, definitely. So Dad's been in acquisitions, uh, in South East Queensland and North New South Wales for about the last 30 years, uh, for a couple big developers on the coast.
And so I was sort of blessed to sort of grow up getting that knowledge and, and mentorship from him, uh, in a bit of a different way. Like, I'd be in the backseat of the car, we'd be driving to Coomera, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and he'd be trying to buy up all these houses, door knocking and putting together like large land holdings for these guys.
And so I sort of learnt just through watching him. And then, yeah, just after uni, obviously wanted to get into property development and didn't have any cash, didn't have any capital, and I did have the knowledge part, so I knew his strategy was, you know, get a hold of these sites- Mm-hmm ... uh, for, you know, smaller deposits on long settlement terms.
And so I was like, "Okay, maybe that's something I could do." And yeah, fast-forward 10 years and yeah, we've probably done close to 1,000, uh, dwellings, like 1,000 lots. Um, and yeah, it's been an awesome journey.
When you see your old man do stuff, even if they fail, it sort of takes away your, y- you being scared.
Yeah. "Oh, my, my dad's nothing special. I mean, if he can do it," like, you know what I mean? Like, my dad's just a normal person. Yeah. And he did a couple and made some money even though he lost it all on the third. I think, well, you don't have to be superhuman- Exactly ... to do this. And having someone that close to you That you've watched fail or succeed, you actually realise that, you know, maybe I can give this thing a crack.
I just, uh, I didn't plan on a- asking this question, but it just popped up in my mind. What percentage of sites have you bought actually were, were listed on the market on realestate.com versus off market? May I ask?
Yeah, great question. Uh, I would probably say, like, 95% of the sites are all off market. Uh, there's still, it's still worth having a look always online to see if there is sites, but it's always harder.
You've got agents involved, you've got owners that want, uh, typically a lot of money, and they want it quickly, uh, which is kind of unrealistic for developers. We need what we call developer terms, uh, which is, you know, long settlements, et cetera.
Okay. So let's, let's get right into the, the strategy now.
Before, we will go through some four or five real deals that Josh has done, but let's get into the strategy. So can you explain in a bit more detail your core strategy of securing sites and getting a DA uplift?
Yeah, definitely. So it all starts back from, the strategy is essentially we're trying to find large land holdings that we can get approvals for and give them to developers, uh, all packaged up, ready to go.
Because the biggest issue a lot of land subdivision developers have is finding sites, and that's where they'll pay a premium because they can then go ahead, develop them, make their 20, 30%, uh, profit margin. But at the start, we're doing the dirty work to try to find these sites. So what we'll do is we'll use mapping software to essentially look at, okay, where are large land holdings that are zoned for development that have minimal overlays, so no flooding, no koala habitat, no easements or hidden things going through the sites.
Make sure that it's, it's either owned by a personal name, so someone that's lived there maybe for 10, 20 years, or a company that's bought it that hasn't done anything with it for five to 10 years. Then we'll go approach the owner. So this could be through sending letters, calling them up, door knocking them, which is definitely the best strategy, and essentially just creating a relationship with the owner.
So we're trying to say, "Look, we'd love to buy your property if you w- wanna consider selling. If not, no pressure. Uh, let's keep in touch." Maybe, maybe it's six months down the time, maybe it's six years, uh, down the road where they actually think about selling. Uh, and that's sort of our edge is that, you know, we're door knocking these people, we're creating relationships, so when they actually think about selling, they think about us.
We're not- Mm ... pushing them. We're not pressuring them. It's just, if you wanna sell, we're keen to buy. We don't have to use an agent, so there's no commission. We can typically pay you a bit more because, you know, we're getting that time to get the approval as well. Then, uh, yeah, we go through the whole due diligence period and the development approval period as well.
But that's essentially how we find the sites, get them under control.
Yeah, no, it's, uh, really interesting. Like, I, I'm a, an, an agent as well, so I understand the process that sellers go through when they appoint an agent. But is it fair to say, Josh, that- The, one of the benefits of you buying these things off market is even though you can pay them sometimes, uh, more than current market value because you know you're gonna get a DA uplift, but if the ones listed on realestate.com, those sellers have probably had three or four agents in all trying to win the listing and telling them, "Oh, we'll get you X amount of dollars for this site.
This site's so fantastic. We're gonna get so much density here. A developer will love this, and Unfortunately, that plan secede of owners of unrealistic expectations of their land. So do you think it's true that going off market you partially, um, avoid that problem?
Yes and no. Like, there are a lot of people out there that still target sites off market- Mm
and, and get the owner's hopes and dreams up and maybe pay, you know, small fees, small deposits, and, you know, waste the owner's time, maybe a year- Mm ... two years. So- Mm ... it does happen all the time. Like, I'll talk to owners and they don't wanna do a long settlement because they've been stuffed around by Joe down the road.
And so it's about actually asking the owner what do they want, what's their goals? You know, do they want a larger deposit up front for the time? Do they want, you know, monthly payments for while you're working on the DA? And trying to show that you're not just some cowboy who's, you know, trying to control their property.
You're, you're being open and honest, and you can say, "Look, I'll, I'll give you X amount of dollars for this time, uh, whether I buy it or I don't buy it. This is what I'm offering." And just being up front so there's no, no guessing game two years down the track of, "Oh, you didn't end up buying my property." At least you can be up front and say, "Look, this is what I'm prepared to offer," um, and just being completely up front.
Okay. So once you, you know, uh, obviously you're, you're gonna find out what the seller's needs are depending on what their goals are in the short next few years in their lives, but do you have a preference, I don't know if you can answer this off the cuff or whether it's deal specific, but do you have a preference to just getting a long settlement contract or an option agreement?
Uh, I would say an option is preference, but, like, we've done options before as well, but every site that we've got under control we've ended up settling anyway. Yeah. Like, the big purpose with the option is you can, you know, bring in an investor or just on-sell it without settling, and that's obviously advantageous if you can do that.
But pretty much every project I've done, uh, whether it's with an option or a contract, we've ended up settling the site anyway.
Yeah.
Uh, the main thing that we do is once we get the development approval, typically the value of the site is, like, two to three times what we've paid for it. So let's just say it was a million dollar block of land.
Mm.
Uh, we got the approval, and now it's valued at $3 million. We can then take that to a property valuer, get it valued at $3 million. Typically with land we can borrow 50, 60% LVR. So with that kind of example, we'd be able to borrow $1.5 million, and then we'd be able to use that finance to actually settle the site.
So we're essentially just paying the owner the initial deposit or the call option fee and the development- Mm ... approval itself. So that's how- Mm ... we're sort of in for the min and then out for the max.
Okay, that's great. And, um, I guess with the option also you avoid having a stamp duty liability. I think it's 30 days after a contract is unconditional, you start becoming liable for stamp duty.
Yeah. So the option agreement might-
Yeah, the option agreement is always more advantageous. Yeah. Uh, some owners like, you know, we speak to thousands of owners over the last years and, like, a lot of owners either don't understand what an option is- Mm ... think it's, like, no sort of strings attached. And so-
Mm
I guess where we are now, we can be a bit more aggressive. We can just offer a standard contract with deposits, settlement terms, and stuff like that. It's more understanding for the owner, and for us it gets us deal access as well.
Yeah. Okay, fantastic. So, um, we might go through some, um, uh, some real deals in a moment, but can you tell us about h- you- we're gonna t- also talk about some software that you're developing, which, um, hopefully will be a massive value add for people wanting to implement your strategy.
But before we get to that software, let's talk about, uh, how you actually source these sites and the role of mapping systems, council overlays, zoning. H- how do you actually source these sites? I mean, before you had this software that you're developing How have you, how have you found these sites?
Yeah, so each council or, you know, in different states have their own mapping software.
Mm. Uh, so they'll show essentially every property in Australia, what it's zoned, what overlays there are, can it be developed, has it got issues? Uh, you can obviously see from the imagery as well, is there existing development on that site? Mm. So they've been super helpful. Uh, you know, we've used them now for 10 years, and the issues with them are they're confusing to use, so it's actually quite difficult to even access.
So you've got to click, you know, five different buttons just to- Mm ... pull up the software. Yeah. Uh, some councils don't have it, so you've got to use state stuff, and they lack a lot of information as well. So typically- Mm ... it's harder to go, say, from a site on the Gold Coast all the way up to a site maybe in Gladstone- Mm
uh, because you've got to switch between councils. You've ... And the information typically in the more rural councils is not as up to date as you'd like. So that's what we've used and, you know, fast-forward 10 years, it's like we'd love to just build something that we know that's gonna be, uh, advantageous for all- Mm
of Australia, not, you know, you could go from a site on the Gold Coast to down to Melbourne and, you know, review sites, like, instantaneously.
Just, um, on that, that, um, a question here that shows how novice I am at developing, but I've got a developments, I've got three at the moment I'm trying to get development approvals for.
One I've only just bought and the, um, I was thinking of m- making it a service station, and when I spoke to the council, the guy said, "Oh, someone tried, tried to come to us with that idea years ago," but it was gonna cost close to a million dollars to extend the council, uh, water infrastructure all the way to this site, 'cause it was d- it was sort of quite a few kilometers away from town, and that sort of ruled it out.
But how do you... When you're looking at these sites, most of them are a little bit away from the existing development. Do you actually just talk to the council directly and say, "Well, hang on, if I just land bank this for five years, can I avoid the cost of doing all these extra connections? Are you going to be extending to, in that direction anyway for other land that you own as a council?"
Have you been through that process before?
Yeah, great question. So services is one of the key things that we look for when we're looking at sites. Mm-hmm. So not just does it have access to services, but what's the capacity of them as well? So if we're trying to build 200 houses on this block, does this, does this town, uh, actually have the capacity to service 200 lots?
Mm. So for every site that we buy, uh, services have to be there, uh, and have to have the capacity. So we won't buy anything if it's too far away or if we have to spend, you know, a million dollars, we just won't target those sites. Uh, we have to make sure it's zoned properly as well. So for instance, if we wanna do a petrol station, uh, which mostly we do residential, but if we wanted to do a petrol station, we'd wanna make sure it's actually zoned for that, uh, make sure it's like a code assessable application ideally.
And we will still go talk to council as well, so we'll do a pre-lodgement meeting, say, "Look, this is our proposed plan for the petrol station." Mm-hmm. "Here's our economic needs report as well showing that there is a need for this." We might do a traffic report as well to show what the actual traffic is through here and demonstrate that there is a need.
Get all that information in the due diligence period as well. So whilst the council, whilst we haven't spent the money for the DA, we've just done these preliminary reports, that might cost a few thousand dollars. Mm-hmm. And then during that DD phase we'll get the minutes from the council, so they'll say essentially, you know, "We, we will support this project," or, "We'll, we'll oppose it," or- Mm
you know, "It sounds good, but you've also gotta tick off all these other reports." Mm. And then that will help us make a decision during the due diligence. Okay, do we wanna go proceed with this site and actually spend the money on the DA? Do we wanna tell the owner we're committed to buying? Um, and that's why just having that due diligence is so important.
But- Mm ... yeah, coming back, services is one of the key overlays. Uh, so on the mapping software we'll review, you know, the water, the sewer The stormwater, everything like that, and make sure that, okay, there is c- uh, service, that we can connect to the services, and then we'll lodge like a service advice notice, which is essentially just saying, you know, what can this site actually take on the capacity, uh, with the current network or do we have to upgrade, uh, the existing network as well?
Yeah, no, it's really interesting. Like, I'm, I'm learning so much with this, all, all of these things. Like, even maybe three months ago I was about to go and bid on a little tiny, uh, residential subdivision. There was concept plans done for 30 blocks of land or something and, uh, the week before the auction I, I rang this mob that I met at a, a property networking event, and they specialize in electricity.
And I just sent the address to them and within an hour they come back and said, "Oh, Andrew, the, um, the existing resources in that town are already stretched and you'd be spending at least half a million dollars before you get started just putting in an, uh, uh, an, an energy transformer," or whatever they call it.
And, like, that half a million dollars, like, you put a little spreadsheet on what you could sell these blocks of land for, but most people wouldn't have had a consultant that they'd ring to check that out. So it's not just water and s- uh, sewer or whether it's rural and you need a septic tank, but you've got to look at electricity as well.
Like, all these things add up.
Yeah, they do. Um, like most of our projects take anywhere from 12 to 24 months, so we can't target anything that we have to land bank for five years or anything- Mm ... too long, so it is really important to double-check. Uh, the beauty about what we do is, like, because the sites are so big as well, let's just say it's a 200-house development.
Mm. Sometimes if the upgrade required is, say, half a million dollars, the project might still stack up really well. So that's something we have to weigh up. It's like, okay- Yeah ... we've, we've done the research. There is, you know, a half a million dollar upgrade required. However, you know, on a 200-house project it might have a, a massive, like, GRV, a massive sales, total sales that it makes sense for a developer to buy the site- Mm
pay for the upgrade and still make a profit from the development. Excuse
me. Yeah, well the, the, I guess the point is most of your contracts you're allowing yourself that time to do the due diligence, where I could have fallen into a trap, uh, in, when, in two, in two or three weeks of a marketing campaign going to bid on an auction, and an auction contract has no- Yeah
due diligence clause. So I could've been really burnt by that if I didn't seek advice from other consultants, I could've been stuck with that. So half a million dollars might not be an issue over 200 lots, but on 20 or 30- Yeah. Yeah- ... if I
can give any advice, if anyone takes anything away from the podcast, it's make sure you get a due diligence period, whether it's only 30 days or 60 days- Yeah
90 days, enough time to actually review everything with the project, get consultant feedback. And you should be at least 99% sure of the project before you actually go unconditional, before you start spending big money.
Okay. And I've listened to quite a bit of your short form content and, um, a lot of it to de-risk your projects is about having a pre-lodgement meeting, but do you always have existing council relationships in the, the councils that you're working in?
Or sometimes you're just going in from scratch and just seeking a pre-lodgement meeting to s- to seek their views on what you're proposing?
Yeah, so with the, with the planning risk, there's lots of different things during the due diligence that we'll do, and pre-lodgement is definitely one of them. Uh, we don't really have any relationships.
A lot of these rural councils, and I say rural but might be like even half an hour from the Gold Coast, uh, a lot of these rural councils are very small and
the staff turnover is quite high- Mm ... uh, just because, you know, they're underfunded and stuff like that. So there's no relationships, but essentially councils just have a set of rules. They say, "Look, this is our planning guidelines. This is what we want for the town." Uh, it gets updated all the time, which you can just access on their website, whether it's like a four-year update or a two-year update.
Uh, essentially it updates the, the more the town grows, the more people that come to the town, they've got to update their, their planning guidelines and cater for the growth of the population. So as long as you're pretty much within the guidelines, like nine times out of 10 the consultants will know exactly, uh, what the council's gonna say because it's just a set of rules.
It's like, okay, if the block is zoned low density residential, this is how many houses you can build per hectare. This is how big they have to be. If there's overlays, like if there's flooding, you have to go do a flood report- Mm-hmm ... and then show us how you're managing that flood. Uh, and essentially all the other overlays you have to do reports for as well.
And the council's just essentially gonna read the rules. Um, some councils can be more difficult. They might just not want a certain thing. But at the end of the day, like if there's an economic report that can back up, uh, the need for that and it's also consistent with what the land is zoned, then there's a very strong argument that it would get approved.
Okay. And just, um, perhaps you can educate me on your Like you t- you've got so much experience, you sound like a town planner yourself, but do you stick with one relationship with a town planner in, in other councils that he might not be familiar with? Or do you select a town planner who might have experience in that particular location and perhaps existing relationships with that council?
Yeah, great question. I, I tend to stick to the same town planner for Queensland. So, uh, you know, I've got a great town planner, his name's Tim. He'd worked, uh, for some big planning company before and literally as I started, he actually started his own business as well. And so I didn't know that at the time, but, uh, he, he had a great r- uh, reputation and we did a big project together and it was amazing, and I've used him for virtually every other project in Queensland since.
Uh, but obviously for different states and even different like councils, uh, it's good to see, uh, who's actually done the job before- Mm ... and, and vet them as well. So for instance, like we're doing a site at the moment in regional New South Wales where my town planner can't actually do, like doesn't have the experience there.
So what we'll do is we'll use software like Cordell, uh, Cordell Connect, where we can actually review development approvals that have been approved already within that council. So for instance, this is like Mid Coast Council, New South Wales. So we can say, okay, we're looking at doing, um, say a 200 lot development.
What town planners has, have already got this approved within that council? Uh, whether we search it up through the council development approval tracker or using a software like Cordell, we'll find out, okay, there's been three approvals in the last three years. They're all separate town planners. Let's talk to each one, show them our site, and get feedback from them before we take them on as a consultant.
We'll get their fee proposal, their timeline, their initial report saying- Mm ... it's gonna get approved, it's not gonna get approved, and then we can make that decision. Uh, especially if I don't know them, uh, that's how I would approach it.
It's really interesting, like the first little development I did was a eight bedroom, eight bathroom boarding house in Southport.
I had some empty offices for two years, couldn't get any rent, and I had the same experience as you. I, I had a, a, a client we were managing a property for him. He was a town planner in a big firm in Surfers Paradise, and he'd just gone out on his own, had no clients. And I, that wa- I was his first deal. And gee whiz, he did such a great job 'cause I was his only one client.
Yeah. He had plenty of capacity to look after it, and we got the, we got the full DA approval within three months. Everything was done so quickly and it's just so great, and I, I'm only talking about that now because I've got another site now I bought two years ago, and I still haven't got a development approval in another city f- uh, a couple of hours away from here because I'm not an important client to that fi- that town planning thing, um, uh, that team.
I'm just a little, a little, uh, developer and two years. And sometimes a month goes by and I don't hear from them and I've got to chase them up with w- where are these consultants at? So it's good if you can get a town planner that's, uh, gonna look after you. You wanna hang onto that relationship.
Exactly, yeah.
Mm. And like, you know, loyalty is huge in, in development and, you know, you have to be results- Mm ... orientated as well. Like, you know, if you don't get approved on a site then, you know, you gotta make some new decisions. But touch wood, like we've never lodged a development approval and it not be approved, so we've got every project approved that we've actually proceeded with.
Um, and you know, credit the team, credit to all the consultants we work with as well. Uh, but you know, that comes back to just spending so much time during the due diligence. Like, I literally tell people, "I don't wanna know like what's good with the site. Tell me what's bad with it. Is there anything that- Mm
there should be a red flag?" Like, we're trying to find why this can't work, not, okay, it's gonna be worth a $10 million site. Like, why can't this work? Is council not on board? Is there some issue with services or something like that? Mm. That's sort of what we're trying to find, where developers get a bit happy when they find a site, get under contract, oh, it's gonna be guaranteed approved- Mm
like no matter what. It's like you should kind of have the approach that why won't this work?
Mm. Okay, well let's get onto some exciting real deals now, Josh. So, um, case study number one, Canungra Gold Coast Hinterland, uh, not far from here. 30 hectare site. That's 30,000 square meters, listeners. Purchase price four and a half million, and I've just written down here I, uh, two-year settlement term.
So Josh hasn't verified all this stuff yet, I've just sort of Googled it. Is that correct? Yeah, correct. How did you find that site, Josh?
Yeah. So this site here, this is back around 2018, 2019, and we were originally just trying to find a large land parcel as close as Gold Coast, uh, as we can. Uh, there was a lot of activity happening around Pimpama, which is, you know, 30 minutes, 40 minutes north of, of the Gold Coast.
And we were looked at Kanungra because, A, it was the largest land holding available, and B, it was 30, 40 minutes west of the Gold Coast, so same distance as people. No traffic, no crime, so- ... a lot of marketing pitch there. Yeah. Uh, so we looked at this site. It was originally zoned all mixed use. So the council had this intention, uh, possibly for some large scale retail, commercial, industrial sort of site, so-
Which wouldn't have worked with that low population It wouldn't have
worked, yeah.
Maybe it was like a lot of shops or a shopping center. Mm. A Bunnings was another idea. And, um, funny story, but the Scenic Rim Council was updating their planning scheme in 2019, 2020 and there was basically a period, uh, with any, with any council where you can make suggestions to the council. And another town planner actually on the Gold Coast, who I found out after all this, uh, had suggested to the council this shouldn't be, uh, mixed use, it should be catered for residential and maybe have some mixed use along the actual frontage of the road.
And we saw in the draft plan for Scenic Rim, so this is around 2019, that they had taken on that decision and decided to actually update the zoning of this site, and this site was for sale for three years as a mixed-use development site. And so it was actually- Which the
demographics wouldn't support.
Exactly. Yeah. It was for $5.5 million as a massive mixed-use site.
Mm.
Back then, Kanungra's median house price was around 400, 450, um, and yeah, it just didn't stack up as a development. So council decided to update it in their draft planning scheme, uh, and it wasn't 100% confirmed yet, so it was in their proposed plan, which hadn't been endorsed yet.
So when we, when we got access to the Scenic Rim, uh, updated planning scheme, we were like, "Hey, this could actually be a really good site if it was rezoned to residential." And all this information's public. You can go to any council in Queensland and you can access their updated planning schemes- Mm ... when they release it.
It's just posted on their, their websites. And so we got it under contract at 4.5 mil. I think we had like initially a six-month due diligence clause, which is quite long, um, but we timed it to essentially be like, will this get approved as a low density or will it not? So we had it under due diligence, um, and we actually tried to flip it straight away.
So we actually engaged, uh, an agency and we said, "Let's just try sell this for a little bit more than 4.5 mil with the possibility of it getting rezoned." The campaign, however, ended, uh, before the rezoning was approved, so people were like, "It's not gonna get approved. It's not 100% guaranteed." We had offers on like, uh, delayed settlements and stuff, but again, back then we didn't have 4.5 mil to just cough up and pay for the site, so we were just trying to essentially flip it.
Yeah. Uh, long story short, we couldn't sell it. I think the best offer we got was 5.5 on a one-year settlement, uh, which we couldn't do 'cause we had six months due diligence. And, um, we had to make the decision, like, do we just walk away from the deal? Do we pay a deposit and actually work on this site? Um, so we were in a bit of a limbo land.
We ended up getting confirmation that it was gonna be endorsed, that the zoning was gonna get endorsed, so we said, "Look, let's make the decision." So we offered the owner a large deposit for essentially another year-and-a-half settlement, so another 18 months, which we knew, okay, we can probably get this approved, uh, for a large scale subdivision or over 50 site and make a profit on the site.
Um, so that's what we ended up doing.
When you say large deposit, a normal contract only allows a maximum of 10% deposit. Yeah. So presumably it was a normal- Yes ... contract. 10%. It was 10%. Yeah, which was a lot
of money for us. Yeah, yeah,
right. And, and, and just, uh, what was the exit price of this one? What- Yeah,
so this site, again, 30 hectares.
Uh, so there was about 20 hectares of, uh, low/medium density land. Yeah. And then there was a portion, maybe about one or two hectares of mixed use land along the street, and then there was another big section of essentially trees that were zoned rural on this site. So without, like, getting too into it, what we did was we focused primarily on the residential site, 'cause that's where we saw the most value.
So we got that residential site approved for 188 homes for over 50s living during that 18 months. That site then was revalued at $11 million. So we went to a valuer, got valued at 11 million, and as I mentioned earlier, it's like you can borrow 50 to, uh, 60% of that val to settle the site. Yeah. So we borrowed 100% to, not 100% of the val, but 100% of the settlement cost- Yeah
to actually settle the site. But because we still had the mixed use on there and we still had the rural land and stuff like that, we couldn't just sell it straight away. So we actually had to subdivide, do a subdivision. So we did, like, a four-lot subdivision. Uh, we created three commercial lots, and we created the, the master residential lot.
So it took about six months to actually- And civil
works are how much do you- Yeah, it
worked out to be 100 to 150K for those four lots. Oh. Oh, not too bad. So it was like- Not too bad ... half a million dollars. Uh, but because- Mm ... we had that updated val, we had access to capital now. We knew- Mm. Uh, during all this time as well, we were talking to operators to buy this site as well.
So it was all really, uh, simultaneous from s- settling the site, subdividing it off, and then we sold that portion to an operator for $11 million. So we're essentially left with all the other blocks unencumbered, we had made a profit, uh, and we're like, "Okay, what do we do now? This is essentially all we sort of planned for."
Mm.
So what we did is, uh, there was two residential blocks that actually already had its own title, so the one with all the trees. Uh, because it was koala habitat zone, we didn't wanna, uh, try do anything on that site, so we just sold it as a residential house site. So, and we also- Large home site? Mm ... kept about, yeah, out of the 20 hectares that was zoned residential, there was about 10 hectares on top of that that was also trees.
And again, we could have pushed in, we could have fought state to try and get more houses planned, but we ended up just not developing in that area. So the 188 homes was within the 10 hectares of zoned cleared land.
Okay. Um,
which was a cool thing about the project. Over, like, 60% of it was just left for koala habitat, and it's actually a beautiful site And so yeah, we had three other commercial sites, so we ended up getting five development approvals for the remaining five lots.
So we got a, a house approved on the site that we sold. Uh, we got a childcare approved for a site. We got a small retail site, uh, this is for the commercial sites, uh, and a warehouse development, so 29 man cave storage units, and the other site was a four-lot subdivision. So the valuations for the other, yeah, five parcels of land was essentially another $10 million on top after we had done the development approvals.
And we've sold three of those sites, and we still own two of the commercial sites today.
Okay.
So it ended up being about $20 million, uh, in total value, just raw land. Uh, but you know, we had to pay for development approval costs, interest on the loans and stuff like that as well.
So if you bought the site for four and a half, uh, what, development costs what, one and a half million or?
Probably sim- yeah, close to that, yeah, for all the approvals and stuff like that. So 6
million to 20 million. And what I am most impressed about you, Josh. You're 30 now. 2018, you would've been like 22 or 23, wouldn't you?
Yeah, started young. Yeah.
So you couldn't do that by yourself, but because of your education and growing up with your dad as a developer, you've done this deal presumably with some other investors.
How did you structure it? Like, who's your partners in that?
Yeah. Uh, there's a long story to this and a short story. I don't know how much time we have, but essentially how I got into real estate from the start, I thought, "Okay, we need to make some money to actually, you know, pay for that 10% deposit," even how to come up with half a million dollars.
So back when I started in 2016, 2017, I actually started in sales, and I, I went overseas, uh, to meet a mate of mine from uni who lived in Taiwan. Uh, back then I'd never even heard of Taiwan. But he's like, "Come over, let's have a party." And, um, I said, "Sure." So we spent the whole week just partying, and he's like, "What are you gonna do now?
Like, you know, you've got nothing planned." And I was like, "Oh look, my dad works in real estate, uh, for these developers. I might sell some of their houses, like new house and land packages or new apartments." And he's like, "Oh, why don't you sell them in Taiwan? Like, there's a lot of people immigrating from Taiwan to Australia."
I said, "That's a great idea. Um, and but I don't speak Chinese, and I've never sold a house before." So I came back to the Gold Coast, started networking with people, big developers, and they referred me on to this guy called John Lee. And John originally comes from Taiwan. Um, he lived in America, so he was born in Taiwan, raised in LA over in America for 30 years, came to the Gold Coast, had a family, and had a really good s- cool story.
He was also selling luxury houses for, uh, Ray White at the time in Sanctuary Cove. So he had pretty much all the boxes that I was looking for in someone to, to help me with this journey. And so we ended up, I said, "Look, I'll pay for the seminar. Like, we'll go over to Taiwan." And we're working with an immigration consultant that was doing the, uh, seminars.
"You do all the sales, I'll do all the preparation on the real estate side." So we went over, uh, you know, flew economy, stayed in an Airbnb, roughed it out. John got sick. Um, and we ended up selling... The, the seminar was amazing, uh, went on the news. John was professional as, uh, but we ended up selling no houses.
And so we came back. There was a bit of a stall period. A, developer had seen what we did over there and said, "We'll give you $20,000 to go back." And then that trip went really well, and we ended up making sales. We ended up doing that all year, and then, uh, that's how we sort of partnered up to actually do the Kanungra project.
So that Kanungra project I did 50/50 with John, um, at the time.
Wow. So, so the exit strategy to sell those ones was teaming up with immigration agents who I'd imagine to get- uh, the right for those people to have a visa in Australia, they needed to invest 600,000 or whatever in a, in a business or a property, and it had to be a new property.
Is that how it worked? Or what sort of- Uh,
we didn't target any of the immigration funds, so essentially we were just, uh, selling properties at that time. Mm. So we would be like, okay, the immigration company's also working with a big fund that handles essentially immigration funds. Yeah. But we, our pitch in those seminars was, "Once you come to Australia, you need a house to buy, and here's, you know, all the new listings that were FIRB approved that you could buy a house."
Yeah. So we were just getting paid commissions- Yeah ... for the sales. We weren't accessing investors' money.
Okay.
Uh, but John comes from a wealthy family. Uh, we'd made some good money doing the sales as well. Mm. And so we were able to sort of, like, my job was essentially finding that site. Yeah. And John's, John was helping out with funding and stuff like that- Yeah
as well. So yeah, we ended up being, uh, really good. I still work with John today. We're doing some stuff over in New Zealand. Um, a lot of these projects I just do myself now because, like, the hardest thing is just finding the site, but, you know- Mm ... it's my best mate and, uh, we still do business together today.
Wow. Yeah. Like, honestly, that's so impressive that you- Yeah, it's a cool, cool journey ... you, like, all of us get to a stage in real estate, whether you're 23 or old like me at 55, where you, you just don't have enough money to do certain deals. So if you can add some value in a joint venture somewhere, like, look at that massive amount of value that collectively you've created that you just wouldn't have been able to do by yourself.
But the most impressive thing is you found a way to do it, because so many people Like when they sit on their deathbed saying, "Oh yeah, I, I knew that area there was gonna be a great development, but I couldn't afford to buy it." But you found a way at, in your early 20s to g- get the ball rolling, and that's what's so impressive to me.
Yeah. And like, you know, there's a lot of money out there, like even for that particular project, like it was a big project, but I've done projects where you're in for less than $100,000 and making over a million dollars profit before. Mm. So yes, that was a, a large amount of capital needed for this project, but there's a lot of money out there that- Mm
if you actually know what you're doing, you can structure deals together. If you can get them under contract and show an investor, "Hey, look, this is how much we need. I've mitigated all the risk. This is the potential return. Would you be interested?" Mm. There's a lot of money out there that, uh, the biggest issue is finding deals, finding sites that actually work.
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Case number two, viewers, uh, Withcott, uh, down the bottom of the Toowoomba Range, um, 45 hectares, rural residential site. That's 45,000 square meters, listeners. Purchased for 1.2 million, sold for around four million. Still, like, incredibly big numbers. Tell us about the deal.
Yeah, cool. So this site, uh, obviously very close to Toowoomba, but like you mentioned, down the bottom of the range.
The, the house price when I started this site was still probably around 400 to 500K in median house price Uh, so found the site, it was zoned, it had some overlays on, uh, but because it was so big, we had a large development footprint. Being rural residential, the blocks have to be a bit bigger, so minimum lot size was 4,000 square meters.
Uh, services, again, there was water there, but sewer was a bit far away, so we had to investigate that. What's it gonna cost to upgrade? Can we actually get it serviced? Thankfully, we could. Uh, so this site, uh, 1.2 mil, initial deposit was only $10,000. So this is like an example of not spending that much money to get a really good return.
So initial deposit, $10,000. The approval wasn't that much either because it's only 55 lots. You know, essentially the, the more lots, the, the more you have to pay councils and stuff like that. Mm. But 55 lots wasn't a huge approval cost. Um, we got really good settlement terms, so it worked out to be about 18 months for this project, so enough time to get the approvals.
And then, yeah, exited to a guy for, I think it was, like, $4.2 million, um, like 3.9 plus GST or something. Uh, funny enough, he's just on-sold it within, like, uh, I think it was, like, three or six months later for $5 million. Oh, God. So, uh, I actually had a valuation on this site during the due diligence period basically saying, "If you could get 55 lots, it'd be valued at $5 million."
Mm. I was like, "Oh." So that's some of the stuff we do during the due diligence. Obviously, the planning risk as well. Can we get this approved? Do all those steps. Uh, but I was like, you know, getting offered around $4 million for it was still pretty good.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I got convinced that it was a good sale, da, da, da, da, da.
Uh, anyway, by the time I signed the contract- ... the market's now, like, $900,000 out there for the median house price. Blocks are selling a lot more than I originally thought. Uh, but it's good. Like, the whole Toowoomba area's just gone bonkers and- Mm ... you know, it's, it's a great area to live and a great area to find sites.
Just come back a sec. I'm trying to understand. You said... Did you say it was already zoned rural resi? Yes. And is that what gave you the confidence to actually go into a, just a normal contract with a long settlement, even though you had the DD clause, as opposed to an option contract or something like- Exactly,
yeah.
We wouldn't ever target anything that's zoned, say, rural or, you know, in different councils and different states they call it differently. But essentially any land that can't be developed, we wouldn't target that unless the council's rezoned it or if it's got, um, you know, even rural residential is a zoning that we typically don't do.
Uh, but because it was so big, we could still get a pretty decent sized project there that we made the decision
to proceed. Okay. And you mentioned there that you had to look at the infrastructure, uh, the sewer wasn't there. Did you end up um, extending the sewer and what did that cost, or did you end up having septic tanks?
Like, some councils will allow septic
Yeah. So, so for this site here, the water was there, but we had to upgrade the water. Uh, this site was okay because being bigger sized blocks, they were all on septic. So the 55 lots were all on septic. Okay. We knew the water was close to the site, but, you know, being so big- Mm
we actually had to pull the water through all the, the up- Gotcha ... updated. Okay. Withcott's not the biggest town as well, so we had to make sure is the actual capacity to service these 55 lots. Yeah, right. Uh, so there were small upgrade costs, but that was fine- Mm ... given the project. It was more like, what's it gonna cost and can we actually service- Mm
the sites? And if we can, it's like, okay,
cool- Yeah, wow ... we'll proceed. Mate, I, I actually reckon that area, sorry to torture you here, will continue going up quite strongly because, um, I believe that there's, uh, infrastructure approved to upgrade the rail system from Melbourne all the way through Toowoomba and to- Yeah
Brisbane. And I reckon, and there's already that Toowoomba bypass road that goes past there. So I, I reckon that area, I, I own a few properties five minutes away in Helidon, which is near, um, near Withcott, and I think that area will continue to go up. So maybe in 20 years' time we can do a podcast and you can s- you can say, "Oh, I sold that site in Withcott and- Yeah, should've sold it
it's worth $100 million now." Yeah. Anyway. Yeah,
the freight line, the new hospital, uh, there's a lot happening there. There's an airport on the other side- Yep ... of Toowoomba. Airport. Yeah. Yeah, so, and you know, you could still buy a house for 700,000- Yeah ... um, in that sort of catchment, so it's attractive for first home buyers, I would say, and- Yeah
affordable, affordable homes.
Okay. So, uh, case study number three, viewers, uh, in the Toowoomba area, Clifton. That's, is that south of Toowoomba?
Uh, so we- uh, south, sorry, yeah. South, yeah. South. 30 minutes, 30 minutes south. 30, 40 minutes south.
Yeah, okay. Um, site here bought for approximately 900,000. Uh, 40 lot development approval.
Sold for $2.5 million. Tell us about the deal, man.
Yeah, this one was an interesting one. Uh, so this one was actually listed online. Uh, it already had a development approval, but being so regional, it wasn't attractive to a lot of people. So people were looking at it saying, "It just doesn't stack. If I look at the numbers today, it just doesn't stack."
Is this, like, 20 minutes south or what is it like? Uh, it'd be
about 35, 40 minutes- Okay ... depending how quick you go. Okay. Okay. Um-
10 minutes for me then.
Yeah, exactly.
I've lost my license. Yeah. Luckily my company car is in my company's name, so when I run out of points I can always pay the five times higher fee and keep my license.
Yeah. Sorry we, we digress. Yeah, no,
all good. Um, so yeah, this site was actually listed online, and even though it sounds relatively cheap, like 900K for 40 lots, the demand wasn't there. The, the prices for lots were sub 200K per actual individual lot. Mm. So it just didn't stack when you ran all the numbers.
Plus it's harder to get trades and stuff like that. But sort of what we looked at Toowoomba was, was kinda like the Gold Coast, and Clifton was kinda like Kanungra. It's like, yeah, it's that sort of regional off that big town. You know, Toowoomba's 180,000 people or something like that, and it's like we know that this town is gonna keep going up because Toowoomba's gonna go up as well.
Mm-hmm. So we made the offer to buy that site again, uh, due diligence period to investigate, you know, even things like the soil in Clifton's a bit different, uh, so to investigate everything, uh, review the approval, can we amend the approval, can we add value, uh, and then a long settlement period as well. So again, something like 18 months was this project I think and, um, we managed to, you know, just hold onto it.
Uh, and then the actual median house price has just increased by 20, 30% each year, uh, and it's become a really big hotspot because whilst we look at Toowoomba and sort of everything in between Clifton, there's still not much land to be developed. Um, yes, there's a lot of land, but it's not zoned properly or doesn't have the right infrastructure to develop.
So Clifton, it was zoned, it was approved already, uh, it was a relatively low purchase price. So for me, I was like, it would be a site that I'd possibly just hold on for a long time, but just given what's happened, you know, in the last five years with all the property growth across Southeast Queensland- Mm
it's gone up so much. Even by the time I had to settle it, it, it'd already two times, uh, the value- Wow ... of the purchase price. So again, I didn't have to put in capital to settle it, I just paid, you know, $10,000 deposit unconditional after the DD. So just
for the viewers, what, what, have you s- just gone and spent two grand on a valuation- a valuer and given that to the bank and they said, "We'll lend you 50%."
Is that how,
what- Yeah, pretty much. So initial- Yeah ... deposit. Um, we definitely spent like some, some fees on town planners and stuff like that, review the application- Mm ... like why they're selling it with that, with the DA, and make sure it actually stacks up. And then, yeah, we, we get the valuation and then, you know, essentially just paying the interest for six, 12 months and then, yeah, basically the markets has just increased over the ne- over the next year and, uh, Brisbane developer looking to buy sites is like, you know, great, you know, it's DA approved.
The, the blocks are now selling for almost 300,000. Mm. Uh, so it actually stacks up to be a really good project. Um-
Wow. So yeah. So the market's been on your side. Maybe it'd be interesting the next three or four years how the market goes, but at- Yeah ... during that period of time, like you said, the last five years, it's just the market's been on your side the whole time.
Yeah. Um, but just curious, like I'm thinking, I wonder whether that train from Melbourne to Toowoomba actually goes through Clifton. It can't be too far away from there. Uh, yeah, I think it
goes not through Clifton, but, uh, close by.
Close by, yeah. Yeah. Okay, uh, two more case studies now. Uh, number four, Gladstone over 50s community, an existing 180-lot approved site, and you've repositioned it into a 450 home over 50s community.
Tell us about the deal, mate, and, and also I was actually preparing for this this morning. I was gonna ask you one straight out question. When you get a big chunk of land, um, when you've done your due diligence, is the end value of a land lease community selling to an over 50s operator a higher, uh, price for you when you're selling as opposed to a normal land subdivision?
I don't, I, I didn't wanna forget to ask you that question 'cause I'm actually don't know and I'm curious.
It, it really comes down to, uh, you know, the location and stuff like that. But the beauty with over 50s is they're smaller than typical blocks. So if we're d- doing a normal land subdivision and the blocks are 600 to 800 square meter blocks, you know, that's essentially two over 50s homes.
So we might get 100 blocks, but as an over 50s we've got 200 over 50s homes. Gotcha. So that's how we can sort of get a higher price. Uh, but again, like if you're doing a subdivision where the blocks are 350, uh, square meter blocks, like smaller blocks, then it might be more advantageous to just do a subdivision as well.
So really depends on the location.
Okay. So this Gladstone deal, um, tell us about w- how you found it and...
Yeah. So again, we're trying to foresee in the future where do we think is gonna keep increasing in value or what, what's looking good. And Gladstone's obviously been known as a boom and bust town, uh, with the mining and everything like that, leaving, coming.
Uh, but I've seen in the last five years it's sort of developed its own stable economy. It's now not solely reliant on these big companies, that people just enjoy living there. There's good work opportunities there, and the property market's reflecting that. You can look at the last five years and see it's just steady growth.
It's not exponentially up or exponentially down, it's just steady growth, and that's sort of what we like to see. And so that ticked the box for me. I said, "Look, the location's great." The, the property market's increasing, so we found this site, again, off market. Uh, it already had an approval for 180 lots.
Yeah, 180 lots. Location-wise, ticked the box. It's right next to a shopping center. It's five minutes to a golf course, five minutes to hospital, 10 minutes to the beach. And we said, "Look, there's actually a big population of over 50s in Gladstone." I think there's, just within the central area, so just the main section of Gladstone, there's around 40,000 people, and about 12,000 people of that are over 50s.
The current pipeline's about 80 homes for over 50s. So like there's a massive need. Let's take this site that's already been approved, so they've mitigated a lot of the risk, and let's put double the amount of yield, even more, for over 50s. Uh, and you know, we've got a lot of reports to, to back that up as well.
The, the economic report, the updated valuations. Uh, we did the pre-lodgement meeting. Council's really on board. The mayor of Gladstone wants more retirement. And so this was a project that we said this would be a really good one to do as an over 50s.
Okay, just question, like the previous developer Got 180 lot approved, but you've got 450.
Why didn't the previous developer go for the higher density? W- do they need to become impact assessable versus code, or what? Why wouldn't they have got that uplift themself?
Great question. Uh, so this developer got the approval back in 2008 for this site. Uh, it was done in a way, like most DAs only last maybe three to five years.
This back then was, uh, I don't know, some DA for perpetuity, like it was a- Okay ... never ending DA, uh, which was pretty cool. Uh, we didn't really find that out, like we thought it might have lapsed, but we found that out- Mm ... during the pre-lodgement meetings.
Maybe he staged it and did a little tiny thing and- Exactly, yeah.
Yeah He staged
it. Yeah. Uh, but it's owned by a multi-billion dollar Sydney company. Mm-hmm. So our, our thought is that they've got bigger projects, better projects to do in Sydney. Uh, you know, obviously in Gladstone as well, sales rate's gonna be slower than hot spots like Sydney, and they've never done over 50s before as well.
So I would assume that they haven't- And I guess 18
years ago, maybe 180 was such a big site in those days- It didn't stack up ... in Gladstone. Yeah. They didn't think of 450.
Yeah.
But yeah, right. Okay, fantastic. Case number, case study number five, so Gatton. Um, I own a property in Gatton, and I went to the Gatton Agricultural College.
It's part of the University of Queensland. Studied a Bachelor of Business in Tourism. Thanks for nothing, University of Queensland. I've never used my tourism degree. Okay, so you assisted another developer on this site, uh, 267 over 50s homes. I've written down here approximately 2.8 million purchase price, and a $13 million exit, which is, uh, a $10 million profit margin.
This is, uh, this is just so impressive, Josh. So tell us about this deal and- Yeah ... who you helped, and were you paid a fixed fee or did you get a small percentage of the deal? I'm really curious.
Yeah. Cool. Um, I'm keen to talk about all this stuff, so yeah, keen. Uh, so essentially this project was done by Elijah Turkovic.
So Elijah's background is in, uh, townhouse sites and, uh, like those boutique really high quality developments. Uh, we met just through mutual friends. He's a
social media guru too, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. I see him everywhere. Yeah, follow
him. But yeah, he, you know, builds really nice luxury stuff. We just connected through friends and said, uh, you know, told him about Canungra, a couple other projects, and he said, "Look, I'd love to get into that."
And I said, "Look, yeah, happy to, to consult, happy to show you what I do." So we started working together, um, and just the exact same process, using mapping software, reviewing target areas, and we've got like our his- hit list of things that we look for. You know, median house price has to be over 700,000. The land has to be flat, needs to be 10 to 20 hectares, needs to have services, all those things.
And yeah, he, he found the site in Gatton, and it ticked a lot of the boxes. There was no over 50s there. Uh, Toowoomba itself has a lot of, of over 50s operators, but Gatton had no over 50s there. Uh, it had a golf course, it had local amenities, shops and stuff like that. We- It's a
goat track that golf course, let me tell you.
Is it? Yeah. I lived in the caravan park next door to that on the other side of the railway, but it's, uh it's a goat track. Needs a bit of TLC
or so. Uh, so yeah, he found this site, 17 hectares, door knocked the owner. Uh, met him three, four times before even a deal was discussed or, or signed off. Couple whiskeys.
Again, just building that relationship. "What are you looking for? Are you retiring? Do you need to downsize? Do you wanna move to the Gold Coast and buy a waterfront house?" And you know, obviously negotiations happened on price and terms, but, uh, was able to secure an option, uh, an option agreement on this site for, I think it was originally 12 months and then extended a couple times.
Uh, so it worked out to be about 18 months, but Yeah, ended up being an amazing project. Uh, worked closely with Elijah on this one. Uh, in regards to payment, yeah, got paid a fixed amount for this project.
Okay.
And yeah, he just absolutely did a really good job. So worked very closely, used some really good consultants, uh, did a great PR marketing campaign.
He was on the news. Uh, and these projects people see, like, uh, it was, it was impact assessable, which means that you actually have to get pu- go through public consultation. Yep. Council have to vote on it. And, you know, I've done projects before. I've had 60 people reject it. They just didn't want it. Uh, Elijah ended up getting zero ob- objections to this development from any locals, anyone.
It's because
Gatton people are nice, friendly farmers. Yeah, exactly. Like, you go to a cafe there, and they're so low-key. Farmers are beautiful people. Country people in general. Yeah. They're not, not as, uh, difficult as us country, uh, city folk. Yeah. Um, but, but, uh, uh, sorry, how did, how did... What was the, uh, contract on that site?
How did Elijah purchase it? Was it- So this was an option. An option? An option
agreement.
Yeah. So
initial option fee, and then a, uh, 12 months- Yeah ... option, but then extended for another six months to
work on it. And there was an assignment clause in there. And was that his exit, that he actually assigned it to a big developer?
No, still just settled it. So that's what I mean, like, that was obviously the goal. That's always the intention. But in reality, approvals take longer than you think, and there's always delays and stuff. Still managed to get the approval in time, so again, valuation increased, can just settle the site with finance.
But we still have to settle the site, then sell it, so obviously paying stamp duty, things like that. Okay.
Okay. Okay, gotcha. And, and the thing, the good thing about that, like, if you're a negative person, you might think, "Oh, well, Elijah and Josh took, took advantage of some old fella in Gatton and made $10 million on his site."
But the reality is you've probably given him more money than anyone else would've given him.
Yeah, it was probably one of the biggest sales in Gatton. Yeah. Um, and again, it's, we always try to find a win-win case scenario, and you can say, "Yeah, you bought it for 2.8, sold it for 10. How's that a win for him?"
But if we had not come there, he would've still been living at the same house. He might
have sold it for $2 million to someone who didn't have the capacity to add the value that you and Elijah have actually done. Exactly.
It's like we say, like, you know, you can give, you know, LeBron James a basketball, and it's worth a million dollars.
Yeah. But if I have the basketball, I can't do shit with it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like using your skill set, and again, 2.8 mil for a site he probably paid $100,000 for 30 years ago. He's made good money. He can now go buy a house, chill and stuff. Probably
paid no capital gains tax. It was probably- Exactly, yeah.
He's chilling ... pre, pre-GS, pre-capital gains tax Okay, so, um, I think we've covered... I ha- I was having to... I was going to ask you some questions on finance and capital structuring, but in all honesty, I think we've covered all of that with these real deals. So we'll just skip to the final thing, which is a new passion of yours, this, um, the future of property intelligence and AI.
We have some software which at the time of recording is not famous yet, but hopefully will become a big business venture for Josh. So it's called Zoned Fire away now, mate. Let's, uh, talk about your new project.
Yeah. So for the last 10 years, I've used council mapping websites, state websites, uh, other third-party websites, and I've always had issues with every single one of them being too confusing, too hard, and, and just, uh, too pricey as well.
So we said, "Look, why don't we create our own software that a mum and dad investor, a first home buyer, a builder, developer, anyone can use, and look at sites, search them up, evaluate them, and see if there's hazardous overlays before making the decision to purchase it, or if it's actually got development potential as well?"
And instead of paying thousands of dollars and waiting weeks to get that feedback before you've even decided to buy the property, you can get it instantaneously, whether you're looking at a site on the Gold Coast or in Sydney or Melbourne, it, it captures all of Australia. And it also integrates AI, so we can essentially just type in, uh, "I'm looking at this property, does it, what overlays does it have?
I'm looking at this property, what development potential does it have?" Uh, and also, "Find me a property," say in Gadden that's 10 hectares, zone low density. So it's your own tool to, to assess and, and acquire sites, whether you're just buying normal houses or actually looking to do large scale developments as well.
Mm. Okay. And, uh, you're, uh, you obviously haven't just built this for yourse- yourself. You're actually wanting to commercially market this product, so you haven't, presumably you haven't got a pricing structure, but you're gonna provide it to people for a monthly fee or something. Is that your- Yeah ... likely business plan?
So the launch
date is July 27th for the product, so it's still a couple months away. Mm. And at the moment I've given it to about 50 developers, and I've said, "Just use it, um, and give me all your feedback." So I've got like a 30-page questionnaire where they can say what things were good, what things need improving, how much would you pay for it, and like what, what actual value would you get from it.
Wow, so smart. Uh, not just developers but investors, and, uh, my mum's got it. Uh, so if she can, she can use it, anyone can use it.
What a great idea. So instead of paying some consultant $1,000 an hour to tell you what software you should build, you give it to your customers for a free trial and say, "Help me improve this product so when we launch it, it's- Yeah
it's top-notch." That's so smart, mate.
Yeah, so yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm gonna be using it every day. I think it's, it's amazing, uh, what it can do, and it's just only gonna get better as well. So, uh, yeah, super keen to launch it.
And if developers wanna, uh, how do they contact you, mate, if they want this software?
Yeah, so it's zoned.com.au, so Z-O-N-E-D.com.au.
Fantastic. I look forward to seeing the end result Okay, well, we'll just go down to some closing questions, mate, some rapid fire ones. Um, best deal you've ever done?
Uh, look, the Canungra site is one of the very first sites that we've done. Uh, we made every mistake under the sun as well.
Like it, the quick version sounds really good, uh, but you know, you get burned by consultants and- Mm ... you know, all, all the things happen, uh, that, that happens in your first projects. But it was one of the biggest learning experiences that I've ever had, uh, that set me up for, you know, the next 10 projects.
And so just getting in there and actually doing that project, uh, rather than, say, watching from the sidelines was the, the best- Mm ... project from, yes, profit was great, but the learning experience was tenfold.
Mm. The thing I love about that deal is most developers make a margin from rural to resi. You've made it there from commercial to resi, which is quite, uh, less common actually.
I, I find that fascinating, mate, because of the demographics of Canungra, I guess.
Yeah, and I think that the, the skill to that is letting the council do that work. Uh, like sometimes it's a lot riskier and harder to try rezone sites yourself, but with those draft plans and talking to councils, they're, they're rezoning sites already.
Mm. So there's no like, they're not gonna object against you doing a residential development when they're the ones that rezoned it.
Yeah. And th- that draft planning change on one of those deals there that you were waiting for, is that, that's usually a 12-month process or two years? Depends?
It depends, depends on the council.
Like Sunny Coast Council, uh, last year, uh, updated their planning scheme and it was probably like two years behind schedule or some- Mm, okay ... ridiculous timeline. Uh, so it does take a while. There's a lot of hoops it has to jump through, but can be really quick and, and can take time, so.
Okay.
Um, biggest mistake or lesson that you've learnt?
Trying to build. Uh, so with those commercial sites we said, "Hey look, we own them unencumbered, let's actually just finance, build, get tenants." Uh, we wasted money on building approvals, on, on engaging tenants that weren't paying enough rent to even make the project stack. And we said, "Look, we're not builders.
Uh, we should just stick to what we know, which is finding sites." And yeah, that was probably the biggest mistake.
Fantastic This is, um, might change over time, but the most underrated development region in Queensland at the moment. So where, where you'd be looking for a deal right now? You probably don't wanna share that, do you?
You don't want competition.
Look, all my best mates are developers as well. Like, people say that, "Why would you share information?" But 99% of people aren't gonna do the dirty work, which is the door knocking- Mm ... which is the talk, getting the rejections and stuff like that. Mm. So I, you know, when Elijah got that Gatton site, that was, that was a site I was already looking at as well, but he did the work that I didn't do, so I'm never gonna be like, "Oh, that was my project."
Mm.
It, it, end of the day it's, it comes down to who- whoever's willing to do the work to get it, so.
Great philosophy.
Yeah. Uh, the region that I'm looking at is pretty much everything from Brisbane to Toowoomba, down to Warwick, and then inland from there. So you've got, like, a bit of a golden rectangle I'm calling it.
Mm. But Southeast Queensland, uh, in the bit more regional area.
Great. Great, great location One overlay or constraint, um, that you're always very careful of?
Yeah, I think the biggest one is koala habitat, uh, especially in Queensland. Uh, it's very prominent. You, you see a site, it looks great, it's zoned, it's big, but the trees just can't be removed or you're spending millions of dollars.
And, and on that note as well, a lot of the mapping softwares out there might have, uh, some, some sort of koala mapping, but- Mm ... it really has to be broken down to is it core koala? Is it lo- local koala? Is it restoration? There's a lot of information to what it goes into, and it's quite confusing. So it's really important to have, like, an environmental consultant on board that can give you the actual data.
Uh, but with Zone, we've got it all programmed. You can see it all nicely. Uh, s- but yeah, koala habitat is the main thing, and my, my advice is just trying to a- avoid it, and if it's on a site, just basically looking at what the developable area outside of it is, and if it still works for you.
Okay, last question, Josh.
Um, if you lost everything, which a lot of developers do when they take on really big projects, how would you start again tomorrow if you lost everything on a deal?
Yep. So I would essentially be doing exactly what I'm doing today, which is just reviewing mapping software, seeing where opportunities are, talking to owners directly, and trying to get that site under control.
Maybe I don't have the funds to actually go ahead and do the approval, but one of the biggest value adds that you can do is having control of a site that someone doesn't wanna sell, that hasn't sold for many years, that other developers have tried to get, but you're the one that's actually got access to it.
So say if there was a site that was 10 hectares for 100 lots, and you were able to get it under an option agreement, and essentially do no r- DA, DAs on it or anything, you've already added value by getting access to it. So then you could go on-sell that site to a big developer and say, "I've got access to this golden opportunity that hasn't been sold.
Here's what I think you can do on the site," whether it's 100 lots or whatever, and on-sell it for the difference in what you've got under contract for.
Josh, uh, at 30 years of age, like, I'm just so impressed, and I'm sure the viewers will be, too. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and- No ... I, I really look forward to seeing how your software progresses.
Maybe it could be a, um, a really big value add for developers right across Australia-wide, uh, it's gonna cover. So I look forward to seeing your, your business progress there as well as your development. Uh,
thanks for having me on, Andrew. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Josh. And, uh, thanks viewers, and make sure you subscribe and, um, get in touch with Josh if you need any further assistance.
Cool.
Thanks, mate. Cheers. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Right Property Podcast. This is all about building a community of like-minded investors who can share real-life stories, experiences, and collaborate with a view to helping each other. Join us. Get in touch through the link in the show notes. I look forward to you joining me on the next episode.