Hi Guys,

Well we have made some massive changes within CCORP and have lots of exciting things lined up for 2009. We have created some new companies of which CCORP is now the umbrella company. To see exactly what each of our companies do visit our new & improved website, www.ccorp.com.au and click on the various companies to get more information or take your first obligation free steps to changing your future.

Introducing;

CMoney; CMoney are mortgage brokers like no other. CMoney provides you with the opportunity to do all your finance and refinancing for homes, investments or developments in one spot

CDevelop; Previously known as Ccorp, CDevelop is for you if you are serious about using property to increase your personal wealth. Whether you are looking to become a full time investor, create a business out of property or do it part time with little involvement or stress - CDevelop have fresh and exciting strategies that work and can help you get exactly where you want to go.

CCreate; Our purpose at CCreate is to bring you media productions that motivate, inspire, educate and elevate you in life. From TV shows, web productions, video clips, documentaries and feature films to corporate audio productions, music productions, albums and more CCreate knows no limits and is fast paced, forward thinking and fresh.

CFoundation; is a not for profit organization, our purpose is to empower lives and create positive change! We are dedicated to eradicating non-optimum conditions that may exist for individuals and communities throughout Australia and the world.

Please feel free to email support with any feedback or ideas and suggestions you may have, as we love to hear your thoughts and views.

The CCORP Team!

G’Day,

Starting a business is one of the most exciting things you could ever do, and you should set about it with the right attitude from the get go. When starting a business you don’t just want to be creating a new job for yourself, you should always start a business with an exit strategy in mind, and a plan for the business to run without you, otherwise it is just a glorified job rather than a business.

Your success of your business should not deteriorate when you are not there. This is the difference between being ’self-employed’ and being ‘in business.’ So, your first goal in business should be to make yourself invisible.

The same applies for when you are developing property. You need to manage the project professionally. You need to employ consultants who you can trust to do the job right. You will need to go through the job to be done, the prices, your expectations etc at the beginning so that you can avoid any problems down the line. For example, by having detailed design drawings before signing on with a builder, there is less ambiguity and less chance of being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous contractor. You do not want to be in a position where you must be on-site every day to ensure all is going smoothly. You will want to be able to breeze in and out of the development sites knowing that all is running well in your absence yet still be contactable for consultation purposes.

Business success requires effort, dedication and sacrifice. But you don’t want to be working extremely hard, you want to employ others to do the hard work for you. Do not be afraid to stand back or adopt a bird’s eye view of your development.

Remember- “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, It can achieve” Napoleon Hill

The CCORP Team

G’Day Guys!

Just put together a list of simple tips you can follow when deciding to take on a development;

• Location, Location, Location. This is one of the first things to consider.

• If you are looking for your property to achieve good capital growth, don’t just rely on historical data when making your decision. While this is important information in making your decision you should also pay attention to the future outlook for the area including infrastructure plans.

• Research, Research, Research. Reports from RP Data can give you many lists on properties, their sales statistics and suburb statistics. Although you have to pay for this, it is a good investment and helps you get a greater understanding of the area you are researching.

• The Internet is a great place to search for development properties. Try
www.realestate.com.au,
www.domain.com.au,
www.propertyfinda.com.au,
www.australiaprimerealestate.com.au,
www.realestateguide.com.au,
www.homehound.com.au

• Understand the property and prepare to Negotiate. To understand and get a feel for current market values, you need to inspect a lot of properties over a two to three month period. This will allow you to get a good understanding of values in the area in which you want to buy.

• When ringing a vendor or real estate agent about a potential development site make sure to ask what is on the site already as demolition costs can be an additional cost you had not factored in in your feasibility.

• Most people look at an asking price and believe that if they reduce the asking price by 5% or 10% they are buying well. You need to realize that some properties can be 20%, 30% or even 40% above what the property is actually worth. Remember that you want a Margin on Development Cost of at least 20% and if your feasibility is showing less than this then you should work your feasibility backwards to see what type of purchase price you can offer and would make your development worthwhile.

• It is important to find out how long a property is on the market. This can give you greater negotiating power.

• It is always a good idea to find out why the vendor is selling. Again, this can increase your negotiating power, as you will be able to create a situation and offer that suits both you and the vendor. You will know what the vendor’s motive is for selling and you will get an idea of how quickly they are looking to sell.

• When thinking about purchasing a property make sure you check with the council that the property is not subject to any negative infrastructure impacts next door or in the street such as road-widening, tunneling or developments that could affect your enjoyment or value.

The CCORP Team!

Media watch;

Not sure if any of you read the article in Property Investor recently but it offered a good insight into how get stuck into your developments without causing yourself too much stress and anguish along the way.

Investors need to fully understand the dynamics of property development before they enter the market. Just as the right small or medium development can be a huge money earner, the wrong one can be a money pit. – Shane McNally The following are just some things in the report that can help you avoid unnecessary headaches.

A good project needs all the right boxes ticked throughout the different stages in development and it is not worth taking shortcuts!

Doing your due diligence is commonsense and things such as knowing an area’s council regulations, restrictions and market demands will give you can insight into which direction your project can go. Minimum block sizes, local supply & demand, necessary demolitions and such information are things you need to know from the start before you can even consider going further with a development.

Call the local council and speak with the town planner so that you know what it is that is needed ad wanted and what the fees and charges will be. All necessary fees and charges will need to be factored in before you can calculate the potential profit of a development.

Will Staughton, SA based international investor believes that if you are not making at least 20%, or even 30% - 35% on a development the it is not worth doing.

Brisbane renovation guru Geoff Doidge strongly recommends joint ventures for first-time developers to increase input and reduce risk, but stresses that the right site is the most important factor in all developments. And make sure you’ve got the right team, the right town planner, the right architect or designer.

Doidge also suggests that too many people get carried away creating their developments to suit their own personal tastes instead of what the market demands. This can lead to spending unnecessary money that won’t increase the end value.

Michael Chuneys, who has been creating subdivisions across SA, stresses how important it is to be aware of all development costs and then work backwards from the profit to calculate how much to pay for an initial site and make a project work. This is an excellent strategy for auction purchases. If you have worked all costs involved in doing a development and included all charges, fees and consultants cost then you can have a realistic figure in your head from the beginning of what purchase price would make this project pay for you. You want to leave yourself a healthy profit margin.

The CCORP Team!

Hi G’day

We get some of the same queries through support quite a lot so i thought i’d discuss some of them here as they seem to be commonly misunderstood topics…

Have the dates been set for the CCORP four day live events this year?
Our four-day boot camps are on the following dates:
Melbourne: 19 – 22 April 2009
Gold Coast: 23 – 26 May 2009
Sydney: 26 – 29 July 2009
Perth: 24 – 27 September 2009
Sydney: 6 – 9 November 2009

All our events, including our free seminars can be found at www.ccorp.com.au/events

What is equity contribution?
Equity contributions is when you, the purchaser puts money into the deal. Equity is having money in the property, so for instance you buy a house for $500k and put $200k into it, you then have $200k equity and a $300k loan. If the house then goes up $50k the people have $250k equity in the property. Equity is something you can take out of the property too. You just need to make sure you leave in whatever the bank requires, usually about 20%.

What is vendor financing?
Vendor Financing is where the vendor allows the purchaser to pay some of the asking price at the end. For example, if the purchase price is $1,000,000 you could get vendor financing for 20%. This would mean that you could pay $800,000 on settlement and $200,000 on completion of the project. In some cases, vendor financing may suit you a lot more than the vendor and you may need to offer some incentive for the vendor to agree to vendor financing such as offering $300,000 on completion of the project. This way the vendor gets $1,100,000 rather than the $1,000,000 he was originally looking for.

Where should I put vendor financing in my feasibility?
You will still need to enter the purchase price into the feasibility even though you are not paying some until completion, as this will still affect your end profits. As you will not be paying 20% until the end, you will not be paying interest on this and can therefore enter this 20% as a land cost with a payment date at the end of the construction period – this would vary in different feasibility calculators, this instance is for the Feastudy calculator. If you are using the excel spreadsheet you would have to enter this information into [insert info]

How can I estimate construction costs without calling around for builders?
For an estimate on construction costs where you do not wish to call builders you can get approximates on the following website; www.bmtqs.com.au/construction¬_cost_calculator

On completing my feasibility which should figure should I look at, the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) or the Margin on Development Cost (MDC)?
When looking at the percentage profit return on a potential development you should take the MDC (Margin on Development Cost) as the real figure when deciding whether or not to pursue the development. The banks generally look at this figure and require it to be at least 20% before they will consider financing. IRR (Internal Rate of Return) is only considered if a development is a long-term project such as three to five years.

On doing a joint venture is there any set structure I should apply?
There is no set structure for doing a joint venture. Generally, each deal is discussed and agreed upon based on its own merits. There are no hard fast rules in Property Development and negotiation is the key. You will need to negotiate a deal that creates a win-win situation for all parties involved and a Joint Venture Agreement should always be created and reviewed by a lawyer and signed by all parties.

Is it important to factor in the timeframe when doing feasibilities?
The feasibility calculators we provide will automatically calculate interest on a monthly basis. This will be determined by how long a particular development takes. Therefore it is important to enter the scheduled timeframe as this will affect your end profits.

What is the difference between council costs and council contributions?
Council costs are costs such as application costs for removal / demolition of houses, subdivisions, development applications etc. Council Contributions or as some councils call them, Infrastructure Charges, are costs such as sewage, water, power, infrastructure such as curbing, roads, parks etc. These must be paid before a Building Approval (BA) or a Construction Certificate (CC) can be obtained. These costs can on most occasions be found in the DA, or you can visit the local council to find out these costs.

How do I find out how to maximize the land usage?
You will need to find out what the zoning of the area is. This will tell you what can be built on the land. You can get this information from the local council. If you speak with the town planner, he/she will be able to able to tell you what they council will like to see on the site. Eg a site may be zoned for Residential but the council may want a particular residential building on the site such as high rise residential or a certain number of units. This will be in line with the infrastructure and demographics of the area. Once you have found out the zoning and what the Council would like to see in the area, you could speak to an architect and find out how many houses, townhouses, units you could get on the site. You want to get the most usage out of the land without reducing the end quality and profit.

The CCORP Team!

When is the best time to strike? This is the question on most people’s lips and you will find many articles in property magazines, investor magazines, newspapers are all dwelling on the same isssue….many come up with the same advice…attack whilst there is ample opportunity.

Rapidly falling interest rates, high rents, low vacancies and flat house prices have resulted in conditions not seen in residential markets since 1996. However, this window of opportunity is not going to last forever as more and more buyers become aware of this situation.

There is currently a shortage of housing in Australia and Michael Matusik, Brisbane born researcher forecasts that this shortage of dwellings will be more than 100,000 every year until 2016. At the moment Australia’s population is increasing by 337,000 a year, its fastest on record. Matusik suggests that it basically comes down to a big imbalance between supply and demand.

Therefore we have the underlying housing demand booming buoyed by the accelerating population growth, while supply continues to be restricted by limited land availability, excessive infrastructure charges and developer uncertainty.

Around Australia, ANZ are finding that the Melbourne market has the greatest resiliency. According to Paul Braddick, head of property research for ANZ bank, better affordability and strong fundamentals saw prices boom in 2007 and should continue to protect the market from any significant or sustained falls.

The prices of top-end houses are falling fast. The downturn at the top end of the market provides a great opportunity for those with the resources and job security to ‘invest’ in an upgraded holiday home or an upgraded family home.

The CCORP Team!

G’Day

Some of the terminology used in the world of property can leave some people feeling like property development is something they could never do or understand and they keep away from possibilities that could see them so successful just because they are fearful that it is out of their league.

Let me take some examples and put them in basic terms;

Vendor; The ‘vendor’ is the seller, the person disposing of the property.

Purchaser; The ‘purchaser’ is the buyer, who acquires title to the property or an interest in it.

Settlement date; It is the date on which under the terms of the contract the vendor is required to transfer his estate or interest in property to the purchaser and the resulting financial adjustments and payments are made.

Easements; A right which a person has to use land belonging to another in a particular manner not involving the taking of any part of the natural produce of that land. Eg easements for the flow of water over and through another’s land. Electricity, light, footpaths etc are other examples of easements.

Conveyancing fees; Fees that must be paid for the transfer of a property title. You pay conveyancing fees when you purchase property and also when you sell property.

Stock; Property. Dwellings. Eg if someone has a lot of houses to sell, they have a lot of stock they are looking to move.

Real Estate; Property consisting of land or buildings.

Title; The ownership of property, or the documents constituting the evidence of such ownership.

Title Search; An investigation of public records of a specific piece of real estate to examine for details such as the current owner, security deeds, caveats, pending law suits affecting the title, rates and taxes in arrears, poor legal descriptions, restrictive covenants, zon-
ing classifications, boundary line agreements and party wall agreements.

Zoning; What can be built on the land/in the area according to council regulations.

Restrictions; An encumbrance that limits the use of real estate in some way.

Understanding the terminology, not just with the council, but also in other areas of property development in general, is a key factor to being able to succeed.