Ep 259 – What Successful New Property Developers Do Differently

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the Property Mastermind Podcast, episode 259. Today we are talking about what successful new property developers do differently, and unpacking the things they do that the ones who do not get there tend to miss. You are going to want to learn a thing or two from this one, so let’s jump in.

Hilary: Good morning, Bob. How has your morning been?

Bob: Pretty good. The usual couple of techy things for me to sort out.

Hilary: Don’t you just love it when a platform changes its format? That is what happened with the software we use to record the podcast, and it took me half an hour to figure out. Thank goodness for ChatGPT, it gave me a big hand. Which is actually a podcast coming up soon, AI and property development. But today we are talking about what successful developers do differently.

Hilary: This episode came about because of last week’s interview with Tom Evans from Alva Property Group. Tom did some things that other people do not do, and Bob and I got talking about the fact that a lot of our students who become really successful do the same things. So we thought, let’s tell people what that is.

Hilary: Bob, before we kick off, give me a tip.

Bob: Here is one that is very relevant to today. Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people are not prepared to do.

Hilary: So true. And it is not about being pushy. There are just some key things we notice in the students who become really successful. They think better, they act faster, and they get better results.

One. Get educated before you gamble

Hilary: Let’s start with education, because you have to get educated. Everything is available online now, but there is a difference between having information and knowing what you need to know. Bob, what are the real benefits of being educated properly?

Bob: The world is full of facts. It started with the internet, and now we have AI. But pulling all of that together into something cohesive, especially with something that has as many moving parts as property development, is the hard part. Too much information can actually be overwhelming. Education is being able to adapt the facts to your particular project, ask the right questions, get the right answers, and then take the action to implement it. That is beyond what AI can do. Someone who has done a hundred projects and made a hundred mistakes and is still doing it, that is the person you want in your corner.

Hilary: And you have to apply it to your situation. There is a lot of similarity between two duplex projects, but there are also differences specific to your project, and those things need to be addressed.

Bob: Exactly. When Tom looked at that site last week, plenty of developers had walked past it. Because he was well educated, he looked at it with a different set of eyes and made over six hundred thousand dollars. I have seen it so often. Years ago a developer named Darren and I looked at a site that a number of people had pored over. They all saw a four townhouse site. We knew a change in the planning scheme allowed six, so we went three levels instead of two and made a huge extra profit. Everyone else was looking at the oyster. They just did not see the pearl.

Two. Ask better questions

Hilary: That brings me to number two. The developers who do well, and the beginners who become successful, ask better questions. Tom is the freshest example in my mind, but there are many others. I remember Durgesh, who got his site and has since gone on to buy two more. He knew the right questions to ask and was ready when the deal came up. They do not hope, they know the questions they need to be asking.

Three. Don’t wait until you’re ready

Hilary: The next one is my favourite, and you are probably listening and falling into this category. They do not wait to be ready. Waiting is a huge anchor. It is like running up a hill towing a tyre. I will wait until after the budget, until the children are older, until I have sold this, until I trust that person. There will always be a reason to wait.

Bob: The best example I ever saw was a fellow at an event I did at the Sydney convention centre, about fourteen years ago. He came up afterwards, full of excitement, and told me he had spent seventy thousand dollars on courses over two years. I asked what he had done. He had done nothing. He was waiting for interest rates to drop, for unemployment to change, for the next election. Just excuse after excuse.

Hilary: And it is not always negativity. Often it is fear or self sabotage, putting off the final thing that gets us to what we want. We wait for all the ducks to line up, when the truth is the ducks line up after you start taking action, because momentum comes with action. I will point to Kaleb, new to our mentoring program last year. He is honest about where he started, but he does what successful people do. He came from a high level of sport, so he understands sacrifice, coaches, mentors and putting in the hard yards, and he just moves forward every week.

Four. Use your support properly

Hilary: The next one is that they use the mentoring program really well. They talk to us regularly, they do the weekly check ins, they get on the live Q and As. They stay plugged into the network, partly so they have people at their fingertips when they are frustrated, and partly for the motivation of hearing from others in the community.

Bob: And the answers in our Q and As come from people who have actually experienced it, with me overseeing it. That is very different from a public forum. I have seen things go south fast when people took advice from someone not qualified to give it. One fellow was about to get into real trouble because his feasibility used a build cost he got from a mate who was a plumber. It was way too low and made a lemon look like a great deal.

Five. Treat your first project as a learning vehicle

Hilary: Number five is using that first development as a real learning experience, not by winging it and hoping to make a profit, but by knowing how to do it properly. What have you seen there, Bob?

Bob: The most you will ever learn is on your first project, but you have to put everything in place before you start, rather than buying a site and thinking, okay, what’s next? I got into education because I kept seeing people on forums say they had just bought a site and ask what to do next, and a lot of casualties who made one mistake after another because they did not know what they were doing.

Hilary: And the learning is not only in the deals that go ahead. Of our twenty three case studies, about half are deals that never proceeded. The learning in why they were stopped, often something that came out in due diligence or the feasibility, is worth as much as any profit. Brett and Belinda took a while to find their first site in May, and Brett told me the stuff that did not work was some of his best learning.

Six. Grow confidence through action

Hilary: The last one is confidence through action. I watch it grow in our students every day, people like Jenny and Jared, and you can see how it flows into a stronger, calmer second project.

Bob: What keeps people stuck is waiting for those five ducks to line up. They get to two or three, then the first one moves, and it becomes a rat on a wheel. The overconsumption of conflicting information from unreliable sources adds to it. When someone joins, we tell them they do not need to finish the whole course before they start looking. Do the first third, understand feasibility and due diligence, and start looking for a site.

Hilary: And do not confuse being busy with being productive. Building an elaborate website for your development company is busy, not productive. Pick the one thing you want to achieve by the end of the week, then do at least one thing today to move toward it. It all comes back to three words: structure, support and action.

Wrapping up

Hilary: So to summarise what we see in people who succeed when they begin. They get educated before they gamble. They ask better questions. They do not wait until they are ready. They use the mentoring program properly. They treat their first project as a learning vehicle, not something to wing. And they grow confidence through action. And honestly, that successful person could well be you, because it comes down to the decisions you make.

Hilary: We have a masterclass coming up on Saturday the fifteenth of August, three and a half hours with Bob presenting. There will be a link to register. If you are not ready for that, our free 5 Day Property Development Challenge is open inside the Facebook group, with workbooks to download. And we have opportunities in the mentoring program if you would like to chat with the team. Next week we are talking to another mentoring student who is doing incredibly well. We will catch you then.