Every decision in property development is made with incomplete information. Interest rates might move. The market might soften. The builder you chose after careful due diligence might not be who you think. New developers often freeze at this point, waiting for a certainty that never comes. On a recent episode of the Property Mastermind Podcast, Bob Andersen and Hilary Saxton explained how experienced developers make the call anyway, how they absorb setbacks, and why all of it comes back to confidence. Here is the short version.
Nothing is ever 100 percent
Bob’s starting point is blunt: nothing is 100 percent, and neither is life. You work with what you have now, based on what you know, what you have learned, what you have seen and what you have been told by the right sources. Property prices ultimately go up, but you might be in between, and you might make a bit more or a bit less than the feasibility said. That is the way it is. If you are new and second-guessing your numbers, the fix is not more certainty. It is somebody experienced looking over your shoulder.
Calls that proved right
In the mid-2010s Bob was building apartment blocks. He looked at the supply coming into the areas he was developing in and decided the current project would be his last. Others kept building. He got out just before the market changed.
More recently, Ultra Urban was buying a lot in an industrial subdivision and had already spent around $8,000 on a survey and soil test to get a head start before settlement. Then the warning signs piled up. The subdivision’s developers were inexperienced and cutting corners, using a conveyancer where a property lawyer was needed, and an easement that should have been registered had not been. Every time the team looked at something, it was wrong. Bob called it: withdraw. His partners questioned it at the time. The site is still on the market in a warm industrial market, which tells you how that would have gone.
Not every good call is a big one. In a duplex in a special location, Bob chose to install lifts, about $120,000 for the pair, and three-metre ceilings downstairs, as a point of difference from competitors who would only leave a provision for a lift. One sold on day one. Set against the holding costs, that proved the decision.
The deal he wishes he had not done
Honesty matters here. Bob once bought a five-townhouse site with an existing development approval because he had a program of projects to fill and was scratching around for one. It was not the design he would have used, three-storey two-bedroom townhouses at the front, and he knew it would be tight. It got tighter. He needed special arrangements with the builder to get it over the line, the bedrooms were small, it took longer to sell, and the profit was less than planned. His verdict: he should not have done it. The lesson is in the motive. He bought because he wanted a project, not because the project was right.
Taking the hits without a catastrophe
Deals fall over, councils say no, finance changes, builders disappear. The worst Bob has faced is two builders going bankrupt mid-project. One of those projects broke even, because a replacement builder had to be found at a higher price. Difficult, but not catastrophic. His method when a problem hits: find the best experts on that specific problem, whether design, finance or anything else, set a plan, and stick to it. It may involve hard conversations. You knuckle down, and the sun keeps rising.
Hilary adds the mindset half. Let go of the original plan, and the disappointment, early. Notice where your thoughts are going and pull them back from should-have and this-always-happens-to-me. No pity parties. And deliberately put good things in, a coffee at the beach before the workday, whatever makes you smile, to balance the cloud. Your head is your responsibility.
Leading experts you are not one of
Even a one-person developer leads a team. Leading well, in Bob’s words, is being really well organised, having a plan, communicating well, and making sure everyone understands their role and the expectations. Be proactive. Bob once reached the day before settlement and was told his valuation had expired, because valuations only last three months and the finance had dragged on. It cost two weeks. That was twenty years ago and it has never happened again, because now he looks ahead to what has to be true on settlement day.
You will never be the expert on design or engineering, and it does not matter. You know your market, you write the brief, you choose the right people, and you hold them to timeframes. Do not micromanage. Do not under-manage either. And watch for blind spots: one developer Bob knows independently hired an architect and a town planner with a bad history, and paid for it in time.
Optimists, pessimists and the facts
Your triggers show up in your projects: impatience, conflict avoidance, over-optimism, over-control. Bob is direct about one of them. Pessimists find a hundred reasons not to act, listen to commentators who have predicted a 30 percent crash every year for thirty years, and probably should not get into development. Over-optimism is not good either. The answer is the facts. Property development is about the numbers, and far more of it can be predicted and controlled than most people realise.
It comes back to confidence
Property development is a confidence game. Every skill above feeds it. The episode was prompted by a new mentoring student who listens, gets fired up, and then does nothing. Hilary’s advice: stop listening and take one step a day, and not the easiest one. Competence comes first. Understand what is ahead and your confidence grows, because you can talk about it and work toward it. Then build the team and lead it. But, as Bob puts it, you cannot captain the rugby league team on the hockey captain’s skills. You have to know the game you are playing.
Hear the full stories, including the townhouse deal and the builder bankruptcies: listen to episode 273 of the Property Mastermind Podcast. And if you want to learn the game from step one, the free Profit with Property Development Masterclass is on Saturday 21 November 2026, 9am to 1pm AEDT, live on Zoom with Bob and Hilary.