By Carly Crutchfield
There are more and more stories of the average bloke or a savvy mum going out and developing a duplex or a site of four houses and turning a very impressive profit.
Could it be true, can the average person now play this game called "property development"? Well it seems it is, if you learn the process and start to understand the basic rules then this is an industry that really is open to all and you don´t need a uni degree or an expensive and tedious license to get started.
What you do need is to understand the basic guidelines of development and how the process works. And the other secret ingredient? A bit of good old fashioned guts and determination.
Property development is usually associated with construction and this tends to be the thing that scares people off, I mean let´s be honest, it can be hard enough to get a plumber to show up and fix the loo in your own home! So when we start thinking of building whole houses from scratch most of us run in the other direction and opt for buying a house that someone else has already built. We therefore throw big chunks of possible profit into someone else´s pocket and we wait for our property to go up in value over the years before we start to see our profit, also known as capital growth.
The thing is property development doesn´t necessarily have anything to do with construction, which is what a builder does. Not the developer! In fact there are some development deals that I have done where I made money and there was no construction involved at all.
Property development is all about increasing the value of the land and doing creative deals and there are so many possibilities when you start to delve into this world.
To start getting involved in property development you need to understand the seven stages of development and the components of each stage. You need to start to learn the language and how to assess the potential profit in a site. This is actually a lot easier than it sounds.
It is quite a learning curve to begin with but once you get it you will always have it and you will start to look at property in a whole new light. It will forever be in your DNA and you will be looking through property-tinted glasses! Where you once saw a block of land you will now see the potential for five townhouses, where once you would have driven straight past a run down house and seen a shack you will now see the possibility of high-end duplexes and tens of thousands of dollars in profit. So where to begin? The best way to get started is to go to your local bookstore and buy a book on property development or do a specialised course on the subject.
Within three months you can get enough education and know-how to start getting into development yourself and may your life and property investments never be the same again!
