Dos said:
JoannaK,
I have just spent most of the day reading through all of your links and wow, pretty inspirational stuff. It is my ultimate goal to be doing what you are doing so thanks for proping up my spirits.
I'm glad you've enjoyed them.
How did the massive development end up, from reading, it was to settle in Feb this year and I pressume that it is all built and done now??
It was supposed to be approved and settled by Feb this year, but we extended our contracts by an extra 12 months. Council still has not approved it, and we have lodged our application to have the DA heard at the Land and Environment Court in January. It will be approved, it's now just a matter of who will approve it. The proposal has become a bit of a political hot potato and the Council doesn't want to be seen as favouring the developers so they're dragging their feet.
Do you also have a full time job whilst doing all this or is this your "job"? Structure, trust or company?? I watched a development near work for months and it is all finished now and would love to do something like that one!!
This is my 'job', although it's not a job. ATM we operate as a company, and any properties not sold are retained within the company structure for financing reasons. As soon as this big one is finished we will be moving our retained properties out of the company into a different structure.
It is very exciting, and rewarding, to watch a development come out of the ground; and moreso when you've actually designed it with an end vision in mind, navigated the DA process, and basically put it all together like a little jigsaw.
But, at the end of the day, it's a means to an end. I won't be doing it for ever; maybe 2 more projects and that's it, then I'll do smaller townhouse/villa type projects to keep my mind busy.
For me, I am currently looking at putting a house on a block that now has an existing house on it. Due to flood restrictions etc it would have to be a removable house on stilts or built on stilts. Do you (or any other forumites) have any experience with building on a block that you already have a dwelling on? I have spoken with council and we can actually sub divide to 600m2 and we have 2000m2. In the area though, anything less than 1000 would look out of place! Your experiences seem to be with purchasing the land and developing from there.
I don't have any experience in what you are looking at doing. We basically demolish and erect an entirely different structure on the land to what was there when we purchased.
In the end, the plan is to develop and keep for the sake of rental income and then increased value. So I suppose the question I am asking is would you see that the bank would give similar loans to yours if the end goal is to not sell?
Yes. My main financier was Suncorp. They have a development funding department and they also have a separate department that deals only with developers looking to refinance out of their construction facility and into an investment facility.
For those who may have done it before, do you have to subdivide if you are still going to own both houses. I suppose you do for valuation purposes??
Once you subdivide your property/ies will gain value; they are less valuable in one line. Also, you'd want to subdivide as you've built according to the regulations of the day. I'd hate to build to the regulations of the day and not subdivide and then have to do a whole lot of upgrades 10 years down the track when I do want to subdivide because the regulations have changed.
Thanks for any assistance, and thanks again JoannaK!!
Dos
Hope this helps
