Yes, this is ABSOLUTELY RULE, I believe it was mention by me and other more experienced developers, the MARGIN is your insurance policy. To be honest if this development had a 20% rather than 12~14% margin, I would have been say "well it didnt work out as expected, I got out of a difficult situation without financial loss nor profit and I had a good education, I was not happy with Metropole nor the builder but in the end it was OK". For the novice/firsttime developer, a good realistic margin is your insurance policy agains slow builders, muddy soil, normal market movements, mistakes etc. etc. etc. etc..!, dont accept a low margin because you are a novice, low margins are for those who really know what they are doing and/or have the financial (and emotional) resources to take a loss.
Metropole properties
- Thread starter silas
- Start date
Metropole Client
I am new to this forum and I noticed some comments on Metropole properties and was interested in the comments that other people had. I have used Metropole before in a multi-unit development and overall was not pleased with their service. I do not want to go to much into the details. I believe I was a bit naive when going into the project, however have learnt some great lessons from being involved. Two major problems, among others, that I put it down too. Firstly, I now believe that Metropole paid too much for the land when they bought on behalf of our group. Secondly the builder they chose was not up to scratch. The building was delayed and project over-run. Financing costs blew out which was not in the feasibility study. The place is now tenanted out, however we will have to hold for a long time as we are now sitting on an asset that is over market value probably by $50k. Some great lessons learnt. I will now stick to established IPs.
I am new to this forum and I noticed some comments on Metropole properties and was interested in the comments that other people had. I have used Metropole before in a multi-unit development and overall was not pleased with their service. I do not want to go to much into the details. I believe I was a bit naive when going into the project, however have learnt some great lessons from being involved. Two major problems, among others, that I put it down too. Firstly, I now believe that Metropole paid too much for the land when they bought on behalf of our group. Secondly the builder they chose was not up to scratch. The building was delayed and project over-run. Financing costs blew out which was not in the feasibility study. The place is now tenanted out, however we will have to hold for a long time as we are now sitting on an asset that is over market value probably by $50k. Some great lessons learnt. I will now stick to established IPs.
I thought Metropole had penalty clauses in their building contracts for delays beyond the agreed completion date?
Would be interested to hear what your experiences were? And key lessons learnt? I am considering using them...
A95 said:
PS Investor said:
Well including me thats 3 out of 3 actual customers who have contributed this thread who appear to be less than statisfied with the results.
We all appear to have learnt some "great" lessons!!! I hope the members of somersoft can learn from ours!
PS Investor said:
PS Investor Welcome to the forum
I find it interesting as a new member of this forum that you read through all the thousands of posts and happen to pick one that hasn't been active for months and months to respond to and pick on Metropole's service.
I have a strong suspicion I know who you are and you are not an old client but the "renovation expert" who messed up a job for a client (not in our control) and wasn't happy with my comments.
Then again I could be wrong
I don't know of any client who has complained we paid too much for their land and we have had surprisingly few complanits about build quality, but....
I must admit we do not always get the results we hope for, but I would love to know which builder was not up to scratch because we will never use him again.
We use a pool of builders and each year we take on new ones and drop ones that are not performing to our standards.
I understand that you do not want to discuss things in public, but please email me or sent me a private message so I can address the matter. All construction is covered by a 6 1/2 year statuatory warranty, so please let me know if there are any matters that need rectifying.
I would really appreciate it, as I don't know of any out standing matters.
We try our best but do not always meet our clients expectations. I admit that. Sometimes this is due to our own deficiencies and sometimes it is the clients expectations.
I don't think anyone is suggesting we try and take advantage of our clients or hoodwink them. We must be doing something right for most clients, as they keep coming back -we have many clients in 2nd and 3rd projects - and referring friends (the main way we get new clients.)
We are involved in more development projects in Melbourne than anyone else so as I say we must be doing something right (you can't fooll all of the people all of the time!)
So what are we doing about the things that go wrong?
The internal matters - we are getting better systems in place and better consultants and better quality control. We have been growing at an enormous pace which at times has strained the system.
The matters out of our control - when the market shifts, as it has recently, some clients will be unhappy with the end values of their property. As you can imagine we explain this and the other risks to our clients, and in fact get them to sign a disclaimer that they understand the risks taht have been explained to them and that they do their own due dilligence into the values of the properties that they buy and proposed end values of their project. (This included AL)
This is what surprises me about PS Investors' post. Why did he get involved in the project if he overpayed right from the start?
Al's storey has been well desrcibed in the many posts here and I have not told the other side of the storey on purpose and will not tell any more details out of respect for him other than one major one that he has left out.
When we had difficulty finding a tenant for him and Mrs AL was giving him a "hard time" which was obviously very stressful, I made an private offer to him which I had never done before nor am likely to again.
I didn't need to, because I was not the developer, he was, but to take the pressure off his wife at home I offered to underwrite the rent for him for a period of 10 weeks or so.
In other words I was going to dip into my pocket each week and pay his rent. The only condition I put on this was that he was to use Metropole Property Management to look after this property (he had already given us the management of it any way) and his other investment.
Why would I do this?
I was disapointed that he wasnot happy with his experience with Metropole and I wanted it to end on a better note. Having said this, the offer was made privately in the middle of last year and kept out of this public forum. It was nobody's business and obviously AL didn't seem to want to share this. But if people are once again slinging mud I thought I should not just take it lying down.
Why haven't others come to our defence?
It could be that we have no friends or it is most likely that most of our clients do not frequent the forum. (I know this to be the case)
Metropole is not Michael Yardney but a team of 15 property professionals who take their job and their clients interests very very seriously.
Last edited:
Hi Everyone,
I often feel like a Forum "lurker" when reading some of the more controversial threads and feel when I have nothing worthwhile to say, then don't say anything.
However, please excuse me but I would like to thank MichaelY for his professional attitude and for the other posters, notably AL; for letting us learn from situations such as these.
Regards,
Kenny
I often feel like a Forum "lurker" when reading some of the more controversial threads and feel when I have nothing worthwhile to say, then don't say anything.
However, please excuse me but I would like to thank MichaelY for his professional attitude and for the other posters, notably AL; for letting us learn from situations such as these.
Regards,
Kenny
