Hello and welcome to today's episode of The Money Puzzle. I'm your host James Gerard, standing in for James Kirby this week. Today we've got a special episode plan which is going to be all about property development, but not your fifty story high rise skyscraper. We're talking about property development for the average mum and dad investor. So if you've ever considered diving into the world of property development,
this episode is for you. We'll be breaking down the basics, sharing tips and tricks, and discussing the ins and outs of property development. So grab a notepad and get ready to learn how you can start your property development journey. And to help us with this special episode, we have an equally special guest, di Chi Samahara, property developer at National Buyers Agency firm Property Buyer. Welcome, Dichi.
Hello, James, how are you.
I'm doing well? Thanks for coming on today. So let's jump straight into it. Okay, So opening the lid on the word of property development. It's estimated that only two to three percent of all property investors engage in development activities. Why do you think that's the case. There's a lot of people that buy investment properties, but not many people that actually develop them.
Two reasons.
One is that investment and development they're completely different approach. So property investments is more passive and you're targeting mid to long term returns, whereas property developments is more coactive and short to medium term form of investments. Now, availability is another reason why there's only one or two properties out of every hundred sites that go off with sales.
So just from the stuff, there is not many sites available, so that puts a limit on to how many people can actually make money as a developer.
That makes sense.
Yeah, And when you say a site, what do you mean is that like a raw block of land is at a house with a land that's conducive for development?
Yeah? Yeah, So look how if you have a thousand square meter a lot with a small house at the front with a little space on the site, that's a potential subdivision site. If you see just another house down the road up for sale on real estate dot com that's really run down, but potential for renovation, that's a site. So yeah, we call these properties sites in general.
Got it? And we see in the media almost every day about another construction company going under, and in fact, two thousand have gone bust. Over the past three years. So I'm just wondering his property development is still a profitable business and what's changed in recent years to cause all of these liquidations and bankruptcies.
Look short aus is Yes, it's a very still profitable for certain products in certain areas. You're just going to be more careful what to pitch now compared to ten twenty years ago, because the building cost is hi.
So whether you're.
Building a house, duplex, unit, townhouses, they only work in the areas with mid to high medium prices. So if it's going to cost you, let's say five hundred thousand dollars to build in one suburb where the resale is a million, but the outer suburb you can sell it for two mil, naturally you will go two million dollars suburbs. So I'd go as far as Castle Hill to the west and Epping to the south. And if you're in that's that's if you're all targeting north apart of Ridge.
But if you're in.
The south apart of Ridge, I'd say you go as far as Stratfield to the west and Birdwood to the south. And generally speaking, you want to be targeting only suburbs with medium price above two mil and outside of these areas, resale values just don't stand. So I guess that's how you pick which areas to start your projects and to make sure that you make money.
Got it, and say, folks, which is a term which James Kirby would say, dayti's talking about Sydney. I mean we do have listeners from all over the country, and in fact I know all over the world in places such as Dubai in Singapore, so we'll try and cover other markets as well. But at this stage it was Sydney that you were speaking about it, and that's where you're based. So why did you get into a property development.
I've always wanted to become a developer, just simply because of the lifestyle choices that you will have. So my job is not nine to five, it's really twenty four to seven, but I get to choose when and where and how I want to work. Especially on post COVID remote work has been very popular. But even before that, I was able to live my lifestyle. So that's how I got into it. Well, that's the reason why I got into it.
Got it. So I'm imagining in Red Ferrari pulling up to construction site, you pull out with your your chinos and boots wearing hard hat. Point in telling people what to do? Is that sort of the lifestyle of a property developer?
Almost true, except not Ferrari or Lamborghinia. I'll drive a white Highlux. You know, I'll get to I've got to look at part as a developer.
So I a driver, good, good, very very practical. And what about education? Is there anything in particular that you have done that helped prepare you to jump into property development, or anything with your career that helped move into property development.
I think a lot of developers have one particular profession of their own. Otherwise, you know, you can't really get ahead of everyone else. My case, I started as a started as a real estate agent, so I was working for Ray White First National.
Did it for a few years.
Made you know, some seed money, but it was mainly getting that that practice and also experience in the real estate environment. But some other people, they could be a builder or train any kind of trade to have that sort of knowledge ahead of everyone else. You could be a banker or an accountant who will know the numbers, really will. So I think as long as you have that one particular profession. It doesn't have to be this particular profession. If that makes sense.
Yeah, got it, that absolutely makes sense. Understanding where your personal straps are and then applying that to the property development. So next time, I'm curious about what type of average investors. So we're talking about mum and dad investors, what sort of characteristics or traits do you think they need to get started in property development. Do they need to have a high level of to tolerate risk. Do they need to have certain experience? Do they need to have a
certain amount of backing but behind them? So you know, who's sort of suited for property development?
I think someone who is proactive and once more control over the course of their investments and often in the shorten to around time. So if you invest in a properties, you know, two bedroom unit for example, there's not much you can do to you know, control this due course. Whereas property developments it's all about you know, making sure you control it really well so that it doesn't go wrong. So I think the approach, if you enjoy that proactive approach,
I think you're suited to be a developer. And also that you need to have really thick skin on the face and also just tenacity to go for you know, one after another, so.
Go get up.
Yeah. Interesting, that's interesting about the comments about the thick skin. So what happens in the world of property development that requires you to have a thick skin? Is it dealing with people that you're buying the properties from. Is it dealing with the builders that you engage in? Curious about some of the stress points.
Look, you deal with a lot of people.
They I'll personally love of going direct to vendors instead of have gone through asians because I get quality sites that way, or at least I'll believe that when I go door knocking, and people usually don't like people hocking on your door, So you're gonna you're gonna have thick enough skin on your face to have the door slammed
in your face every now and then. But also is just just talking to builders, you know that they could be really rough and they're good people, but they come across very aggressive sometimes, but so you've just got to deal with it.
Not all of them, by the way, but.
Yeah, generally stress tolerance level that's very important.
So yeah, that's yeah, the think goes better.
I think I understood and for someone who's wanted to get started out in property development. Is there anything that you had come across that would help any websites with useful information? And the YouTube courses are their template spreadsheets out there is anything to sort of kick start somebody who wants to learn more about this?
Yeah, yeah, look, I mean there's not any particular course that you want to enroll yourself in, so it's not necessary. All the how to develop property one oh one type of videos are all over YouTube, So just watch something that's well edited and it makes sense to you what you enjoy. But I think practicing running feesos is better than any other training that you can get off these videos, to be honest with you, So start with a simple
renovation job. Compare the buying price to the resale value and see if there's in you're not enough margin in it after considering not just build costs but GSD levees interest. You can find these on domain real estate dot com dot au and yeah, once you get used to it, then you know you can do one for new build and then duplexed, then maybe two to three subdivision and even if you have no idea about anything, now trust me, once you have run a hundred feesos and read through
a few led p s DCPs. You will start feeling more comfortable in what you're doing and move on to considering the first real life project.
Perfect. Yeah, so step by step, start with renovating a bathroom and then work your way up to doing a ten subdivision lot development somewhere.
Yeah, that's it.
Just just if it's just practice practicing fees it it's free. You don't losing your money, So that's the best way to learn.
Yeah, it's a good point. Looking in your own backyard pun intended. So looking in your own property portfolio and seeing if there's any scope to improve the value of existing properties you have. So I suspect that you could have a look at things like can I build a grany flat in the back of an investment property? Do
I have enough land to subdivide? Is it worthwhile doing a knockdown and rebuild or a knockdown and building townhouses on the site, or is it just worth maybe doing a renovation, and as you said, Dichi, looking at the cost of the renovation and then afterwards, what's that uplifting value of the property. And if you find that that worked well on your own portfolio, then maybe you can get started and looking for other sites to purchase, not so.
Much your own portfolios. You do your practice rounds on looking for sites for sale on real estate dot com or domain dot com dot au because usually your portfolio is not necessarily suited for property developments. You got to for the development project to work, you've got to get it right from the start, at the buy in.
So if you already have.
An investment property portfolio, chances out it wasn't bought for development purposes, so you don't often find something profitable within your own portfolio. It's just going to start from the number one.
Step one. It was just to find and buy the.
Side, got it. So your suggestion is to be purposeful with it. Don't look at what you have and try and make a triangle fit into a square hole and develop your existing asset to start from scratch. Correct.
Correct.
The expression that I use always is that no matter how well you cook a rock, you can't make it taste.
Like a steak.
So you've just got to Yeah, the property the site has to be right from the start.
Yeah, that makes sense, all right. Well, talking about property developments and the different types, can you run us through what the different types of property developments are that maybe an average mum or dad could consider. So I'm thinking about things like buying a vacant block of land. Is that maybe better to do? Should you buy something in an established area with an old house on it? Should
you be looking at subdivisions, knockdowns? And there's a lot of different options or spectrum of options when you say the word property development. But for the average sort mum and dad investor, can you run me through some of the more common types of developments that they might be able to get involved in.
Look everything you mentioned, renovation, new build, duplex, subdivisions, they're generally a good place to start because they're less factors that could go wrong. This is important because if the project does go wrong for some reason, why you have
less to lose. It's actually very hard to lose money as long as you're only developing one or two keys, because these if you're only building one or two keys, the potential debt can be managed on the personal level, whereas if you had like five ten kids going at the same time, then quite often that's enough.
To bankrupt you. So that would be where I'll start.
If I was just starting out today.
Okay, and then we're choosing a builder, which is central to development. If you're knocking down and you're building stuff over the years, how have you found a knack at picking developers? So, builders, what are you looking for with the builder themselves or through their company to have the best chance that they're going to complete the build in the time frame, in the budget, in the specs that you want.
Look, I would be looking at not the cheapest. First of all, I'll run a tender always at least three. But someone don't necessarily go for the cheapest builder.
I would go for someone that.
Can justify what they're charging for and how much. And because at the end of the day, you know, if you find a builder that is way cheaper than everyone else's, chances are they are trying to collect as much cash as possible before they fall, for example. So mate, you look at if you want to be very very diligent about it, you want to be just tracking how many
jobs they have. You can even try trying to find out how much asset they have to assess the risk of them going bankrupt, which is probably not a silly thing to do in this market right now, that's.
A good point. All right, Well, moving along to different budgets for property development. Some people listening might have five hundred thousand to invest into a property and the development. Others might have five million dollars. So could we maybe break it down to a few different price points they say less than a million dollars, then maybe one to three million, and then three million to maybe six million dollars.
And if we could open up to around the country as well rather than just focus on Sydney, what type of property development would you suggest for each of those three sort of budgets. And again there's not advice to anyone, it's more just sort of ideas of, you know, where might be attractive with regards to the different types of property development that you could potentially do. So to recap listen a million, second category one to three million, and third category three to six million.
Sure sure, Look, you're borrowing capacity and cash in hand at two different things. So I'm going to talk very generically to you because that million dollars could mean anything. So say if you had two hundred thousand dollars cash save up and then you can borrow let's say sixty percent of VR, that's three hundred K you can buy up to half a million dollars in property, but if you can borrow up to eighty percent in metro area, you can buy up to a million dollars in property.
But I spoke about having the minimum threshfold a threshold for meeting prices earlier on. If we spent the whole two hundred k that you've saved up, you have no money left to even run. A DA should be your first step. So when you have less than say half a million dollars in cash, you can't really fund purchase of the property and pay for the DA on your own. So until you surp surpass that benchmark, you should really team up with someone. Otherwise you just can't get that
traction you need. But once you hit that set of half a million dollars mark, then I would be looking at some suit of simple way to probably look at is if you're targeting its minimum two million dollars meeting miting price suburb and then if you have let's say less than million dollars, let's say your first cattery half a million dollars to million dollars, that will be enough to buy yourself let's say million, two million, one and a half million dollars property for subdivisions, So you could
be targeting where would that be Earlwood would be would have that around sort of just or under two million dollars mark, so you will probably pick up a potential maybe a knockdown rebuild site in earl would to build one extra key on maybe two. But if you have one to three million dollars, then you can start running four.
Different key four let's say four more than four keys.
So you could be running a project that could that you build four townhouses in a medium sort of average area, or you can choose to run eight in.
A cheaper area, or you can choose to run two let's say very expensive duplexes in more.
Like eastern suburbs or lower north Shore.
Three.
When you have three to six million dollars, then you and if this was hash not your borrowing capacity, once you have three million dollars six million dollars, you start moving on.
To sort of do you really want to be putting that three to.
Six million dollars to run your own project? You could be better off maybe teaming up with a bigger developer and you go in as a potential equity partner to have them delivery let's say twenty thirty forty townhouses units, and then you can leverage off their professional experience and capabilities.
So that does that make sense?
You up to about three mil, you you will be you're you know, if you're a novous developer, then run your own project. But after three mel, you'll you know, you want to be working with bigger guys. That's how I feel.
Yeah, that makes sense. And for everyone who's not in Sydney. Earlwood is a suburb that's sort of about ten to fifteen kilometers outside of Sydney b D. Did I hear you say something about keys. I think you said eight keys? What do you mean by by that? With regards?
Yeah, look, Iran, people say it differently. I say keys, but if some people say sites per site or dwellings. But it's a number of literally a key to open the door. So if you say I'm doing eight keys, that means I'm dwelling building eight dwellings, or some people you know might just say, oh, I'm doing eight dwellings. If I say four keys, I'm building full houses or units.
Got it? That makes sense? There we go everyone, We're starting to learn the property development lingo keys. I haven't heard of that much.
The keys are usually used to describe hotels and motels, but I started using this because a lot of people understand keys more than when I say sites.
Yeah no, no, that makes sense. All right, Well, before we get into the nuts and bolts of the property development process, le let's take a pause for a break. Hello, and welcome back to the money part. As the Lame James Gerard, writer contributed to the Wealth section of the Australian newspaper and also Financial Advisor with Financial Advisor dot com dot Au. And this week on the show, I have die Gi Samahara, Director Property Developer and from Buyers
agency firm Property Buyer. So now let's have a chat about the development process. But before we do that, I just want to remind everybody that what we're discussing is general advice. It's not personal advice. So please don't go out there and start buying properties and getting shovels in developing stuff. Go seek advice from a qualified professional before you do anything. All right, Diji, let let's jump into
the development process. So can you run me through what a typical development process would be from the beginning stage to the finishing stage and then some of the common challenges that you would face in that. And let's maybe work off the example of let's say a Sydney or Melbourne thousand square meter property with an old house on it. The local Environment plan from the council is conducive to be able to knock down the old house and subdivide
it and build two townhouses on separate titles there. So can you run me through from we've founded the property, we've agreed on the price, how do we get from that point through to the keys having these two townhouses and selling those off for a profit.
Look, if I was to really broadly.
Just ordered to process that will be acquisition which you just mentioned, you get the offer and acceptance exchange sets on it. Now you've got the DA process, So that's your development application. You want that approved body council so that you can build those two houses. Now you then move on to c C process construction certificate. So DA is an approval to build, the plan to build the construction stifficult, it is an approval to actually start building.
What's on the planet, And what.
About the private certifier? You would you typically try and go through a private certifier process or development application through council.
Yeah.
Yeah, Look, you know, if you if you're what you're trying to get approved is all compliant to the council rules, you should definitely go through private certifier. Saves a lot of time and money. But then if you want to do anything that is beyond the permissible rules or parameters that the Council give, which you want to be doing to turbo charge your value, you have to go through DA. But yeah, if you're just looking to sub bridge your backyard or renovate, yes, private certifier perfect.
All right, So we're up to construction certificate which allows you to construct and then what happens from there.
So once you have that construction certificate and pay your section fees levees, you get to the first.
Draw down we call it is when you start. This is when everything starts. You can't go back.
You've borrowed your first dollar from your construction financy and the construction starts.
Now, okay, and sort of how long would that be from the day you've settled the property until you start to draw down on that loan to construct? Like, how long roughly is that approval process for a typical townhouse side in say Sydney or Melbourne.
Look, the last subdivision that I've done two lots out in Kringai area that took me four months so and another suburban b graft that took me four months. So two lots subdivisions. It doesn't take as much as long as you know it's compliant. So you're looking at four to six months for the DA. Now you've got three months CC. Then after it depends when you settle. You
can settle any time. You can choose to settle on DA approval or on CEC approval, but regardless, you want to be spending as little as possible from the time of settlement. So you start building because every day your interests.
Are at it daily. So look, I would be targeting no more than a month.
If I had, you know, if I have to settle on property, then start subdivision work. So yeah, and then once the building is complete, then obviously you've got your marketing. You can choose to market your property before construction is finished, so off the plan. This really helps you obtain well, at least you can set your price. You can you
can sleep at night knowing that it's all sold. But some people choose to build finish complete building first then cell because it has that wow factor when it's presented to the market and you can often get higher price. If your finance allows you to build first, then you should in my opinion. But if you're just really really.
Leveraging a very high amount, you might.
As well just get it done and going to sell before it start complete and just just cashing then once it sorely have your settlement. And that's that's your normal, typical process of doing something like this.
I understood it sounds like a piece of cake, but sometimes it isn't. So what can go wrong or what have you found can go wrong typically in that process that you've just described, To.
Be honest with you, what could go wrong or unforeseen problems? You know they're unforeseen because I can't think of it now, right, So you always assume that there's going to be a problem.
Right.
I haven't seen a single development that didn't have one a problem. Right, So you want to look, we spoke about the acquisition process, you said, start off this conversation. Let's say we agreed on a price, YadA yadaya da. But personally I feel that the process starts majority of the development process is in the purchasing stage, because there's a saying in the industry that in property development, the profit is earned on the purchase, not the sell.
So if you don't pick the.
Right project from the staff the right price, it's already game over.
And you want to be.
Making sure the building escalation contingency project contingency. You want to put in about ten to fifteen percent of the total project costs towards your contingency. Otherwise you just don't have enough to deal with those problems that it's guaranteed to arise. But as long as you have that contingency, you're always safe. That's how will medium my risk?
Got it? And do you micromanage each project? So for example, if the I'm not sure what they call the concrete, a person who lays a slab, if they say the slabs meant to be X number of inches deep, but they do it y number of inches deep, which is not deep enough and it needs to be rectified, and
then that causes delays and stuff like that. Do you try and inject yourself into each of the development to sort of be there to oversee and make sure people are doing the right thing, or do you have to employ someone what they called a site manager.
Site manager, project managers.
Yeah. Look, when I was starting, Yeah, I was trying to save every dollar. I had more time on hand, so I was trying to do everything myself. From getting DA for renovation, you build subdivision work. But you get to the point where that's probably where you don't want to be spending your money on.
And also the biggest.
Thing that I've learned was if you pay someone and get the professional to do it for you, when there's a problem you actually have, you can legitimately blame upon a finger sound that person and blame blame it on him. It's his insurance, it's his responsibility, it's not it's not you. That that is very important. And if you can get that responsibility and potential liabilities risks off your back for the cost of thirty forty fifty growing, you might as
well pay. So that's that's that's you look at. You weigh up how much enjoyment you want to get out of managing it yourself too? Okay, really, how much risk should I be mitigating?
Yeah? Good, good point. All right, Well, before we get into the million dollar question of how much money can be made, from this, we're going to take a pause here and stop for another short break. Hello and welcome back to the money Pazzal. I'm James Gerard, contributor in the WORL section of The Australian and also financial advisor
at Financial Advisor dot com dot au. And today I have Daichi Samahara, property developer and director at Buyers Agency firm Property Buyer Okay, So as discussing before the break, let's chat about the numbers. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. I've heard that an average property development a good rule of thumb return is thirty percent gain. Is
that sort of the industry rule of return? In terms of how much it costs you to buy the property, all of the associated costs like stamp duty, all of the construction costs, interest on the loan, agenc fees to sell, you should end up with about a thirty percent return.
Yeah, look, thirty percent sounds great, but first you need to understand the difference between your profit margin and return on investment. So profit margin is that's probably what you're talking about, is the ratio of the net profit over to total stop the project. But this includes your cash and the loan you get so whereas ROI, on the other hand, is the ratio of net profit over actual cash use them. So for example, if you make two hundred k profit by spending a mill to buy a
site and build including alone, your profit margin is twenty percent. However, feel only spent two hundred K of your own cash and borrowed the other eight hundred k, your rois one hundred percent.
Right.
So to answer your question, James, that that thirty percent is good if it was a profit margin, but if as an ROI, it's probably not. Because if you put your cash in the bank term to positive get five percent per aandum. If you put it in debt funds you'll get five to ten. Invested in equity funds you should earn about sixteen to eighteen percent. But if you're not just risking your cash but taking on debt project risk everything, you want to be clearing at least sixty
percent per anum on your cash. So that's sixty percent in ROI.
Just to be clear on that, it sounds like to maximize the profit on a property development, you should minimize your own cash that you put in and borrow more from the bank so that the return that you get. The gross profit, as you put it, is enhanced due to the level of leverage or geary that you've had over that investment slash development. Is that correct?
Slightly different topic, but it is correct in a sense. Yeah. Look, if you can borrow more, yeah, you know you should borrow more. But if you don't have to borrow more, if you have enough cash, you you know you don't want to borrow more. There's there's pros and cons, but I was more talking about the perception of that thirty percent that you've mentioned so as a profit. So let
me finish explaining. So profit margin, right, this assesses the feasibility of the project itself, and the target profit margin ranges anywhere from fifteen to thirty five percent, and this depends on the length of time requires to complete the project.
So if you're only.
Building a house which takes twelve months to complete, then you're okay, were ten to fifteen percent profit margin. But if you're building multiple keys and it takes twenty four months, you want to be aiming for twenty five percent. If your land sub that takes three years, you want to be targeting thirty five percent. On more so, probably the best way to measure your profit margin if it's above
the board, is you want to clean. Let's say twelve and a half percent per annum would be a good benchmarked to clear for your profit margin.
So if it takes two years twenty five.
Percent perfect that that's great. And then adding in the capital structure of cash versus debt, what would be the typical mix. So from say, let's just pick some random numbers, a million dollars property purchase for the site, how much of that would be typical from a developer to put in his cash. How much would they borrow of that?
And then when you come to the development, let's say it's you're going to build two townhouses on the site and they're going to be five hundred thousand dollars each. So for that second million dollars for the development cost, who pays for that? Is that from the developer pays part, the bank lends all of that. What's the typical cash freest and s debt ratio with that example?
Okay, very broadly speaking, you're filling the metro area. Banks are generally happy to lend you up to let's say seventy five percent of the value. So if that million dollars was in Sydney Metro, that you'll put in two fifty of your own cash and you're borrow seven fifty.
Whereas feel in the rural area, let's say you're around on the Lake Marquori, they'll banks will only give you sixty percent, so you will have to come up with four hundred thousand dollars of your own cash and two fifty and yeah, that's number sort of you know, stays the same from mortgage to construction finance, so that will be your rough deposit or cash. I should say that you should can set up setting.
Up okay, and then on the construction side of things, correcting me if I'm wrong, but using the same metrics
Sydney Metro, say seventy or eighty percent loan. Because the property today is only worth a million dollars as is, the banks are taking a view that after the two townhouses are on, the site is going to be worth two and a half million dollars, So they'll lend the construction loan based on the completed value of two and a half and lend seventy or eighty percent of that for the construction finance, but at a higher interest rate compared to the first loan to acquire the property.
Is that correct? Combination of both? So if the resale value gross revenue we call it is you said two and a half MILLI yes, So if it's two and a half meal then and let's say if it's in Sydney metro area, the banks will probably lend up to eighty percent. So they'll go, yep, we can lend up to two million dollars. But then they also look at how much cash you have put in competed at two million dollars loan, So they go, well, look, you know eighty percent of gross revenue two mil. But of that
have you how much have you put in? Have you put in two hundred thousand dollars?
No, that's enough.
I want to see let's say thirty percent ut least, So they'll probably ask you to put in let's say six hundred thousand dollars cash. So to figure out how much you need to come up with, you have to calculate from both angles, and typically you know you can only borrow the lesser figure out of the two.
That makes sense, Yeah, no, that absolutely, that makes sense. All right. Well, last question overall is what are some of the tips and tricks that you've learned, is there anything that through your experience you would you go, geez, I wish I knew that my first developments that you've only learned over experience, over time, and anything else that you have to say to anybody who's interested in doing a property development.
Look, there is no particular suburb or product your guarantee to make money on. But if you must rup the diligence and method to do the volume, your guarantee to find one or two potential opportunities for every hundred sites to you assess. So with a you do this for your your yourself will pay someone to do it for you. Know that this is the only way for most people to break through.
Otherwise you just.
Waste too much time dwelling on property or sites that don't even stack up. But because that's all you have, you go, oh, look at if I reduce the build costs by ten gram per square, would to work? See like, that's that's the common trap that a lot of people newbie's falling to. So just just that that will be my number one comment. But also getting started isn't hard. It's not different to committing yourself to going to the gym.
So I'd actually go as far as saying, succeeding on your first project is not that hard because most people are sensible enough to only take on projects that can go that can't go wrong, even if the profit margin is very small. But it's usually the second or the third project that slows you down or worse, knock you out of the race completely if you don't have the
right guidance from someone with experience. So I've seen too many people ruin there what could have been a brilliant property development career by getting comfortable way too early and making silly but fatal mistakes. So where the it's your business partner or consultants or business coach, work with the mental We can guide you through the first project with you, not just the first one.
Very good tips and advice, and thank you Diji overall for everything you've said today. It's been great to open the lid and look inside of the property development world and hear it from somebody who's actually doing property developments and been successful at it. So Diiji Samahara, property developer, Director at Buyers Agency firm Property Buyer, It's been fantastic having you on insights have been great and I hope our listeners have learned a lot about the basics of
property development. Thank you again for coming on.
It was my pleasure.
Thank you, James, no worries, and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to today's episode of The Money Puzzle. Send us your questions and mister James Kirby will be back next week to answer them. But you'll have me
again for the next episode. We'll be having an account ten end of financial year tax session with an accountant to get the inside scoop on tax planning and also have a chat about accounting and tax advice that you might hear at over the barbecue or at a pub or from the back of a taxi and whether or not those things are accurate. We'll run through some common
situations and get whether they're true or false. You can tweet us your thoughts just use the hashtag the Money Puzzle or one word, or email us on the Money Puzzle at the Australian dot com dot au. Until next time, I'm James Gerard. Talk to you soon.