80% of Development Sites Don't Stack Up: How to Start Property Development in Australia's Toughest Market
Built Different PodcastShow Notes
Steve Maroun runs a $200M development pipeline at 30 - and says this is the hardest moment in Australian property development in living memory. His family lost nearly everything in the GFC. He's building anyway. Steve, Director of Lanevick, takes Aaron Christie-David through the maths that stopped working: land, build cost and sale price all moving the wrong way at once, to the point where sites approved for six storeys are now worth more with the existing house renovated. He breaks development into four pillars - finance, construction, design and town planning, and sales, and shows where first-time developers quietly destroy their margin before they've turned a sod. Splitter blocks that shrink your buyer pool. Over-capitalising on a build nobody in that suburb can afford. Treating development as something you do on the side. It's also a family story. His father arrived in the early 1980s, started in cement rendering, built a portfolio across the Olympic boom, then watched it unwind in 2008 with only the family home left. What Steve learned in the rebuild is the real lesson here: start small, stay active, run your own race, and stay in the game long enough for the odds to do their work. Book a free discovery call with Aaron New episodes every Monday, 6:30 am. Formerly The Australian Property Investment Podcast - 275+ episodes. Follow us on Instagram & YouTube
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