Designing, Building & Developing a Luxury home in Lindfield

I believe they have knocked down and rebuilt, correct?

Settlement day today

Hi All

Quick update.

We didn't manage to get started last week as planned. I was sick, my demo guy was sick, my partner was sick, everybody was sick.....and then it rained for most of the week.

We have rescheduled strip out for this Friday

The only other thing we have been doing is looking into appropriate screening plants for the rear boundary.

We have been tossing up between bamboo and fast growing Lilly Pillys. Went to Flowerpower on the weekend and we think the Lilly Pillys are the way to go. Possibly in the 100L pots. We need 14 of them and they are $720 each so I need to make some calls and see if any wholesale nurseries have them cheaper.

The idea is to plant them straight after demolition to maximise growth time.

Thats all I have for now. Off to work

Cheers

Simeon

Hey Simeon!

1st of all thanks for the advice on PM and the Beacon light code, both were useful for me!

Now, 40k for double brick home? Am I reading it correctly? Or you talking about just the difference in price hike?

Hi Everyone,

The last few weeks have been so frustrating.

Getting insurance in NSW these days is an absolute punish. A process that up until a few months ago would take 2 - 3 days is now taking weeks.

Speaking to a number of major suppliers to the building industry, there really seems to be a major split in the construction industry, You have a heap of builders absolutely struggling and going broke, and then you have niche group like ourselves who are booming.

So understandably, ICARE who are the NSW insurance provider are scrutinising every single application. Previously you would fill in a form send it to your broker and then after 2 days they would send you an invoice, pay that and bam...you have your policy,

Then a few months ago they started asking to view construction contracts as well. All good, no problems.

Now they are checking everything with a fine tooth comb and picking up minor spelling errors and wanting contracts redone and resubmitted and taking ages to go through this review process.

This project is/was interesting and confusing for them as it is builder who is building for themselves and paying cash for construction ( a related party) so we had to do contract between ourselves ( although seperate entities as we bought the land in a special purpose vehicle company).

Anyhow, stupid me made a typo on the contract with one of the company names, so that held up our insurance for a couple of weeks. We finally got it approved on Friday and paid the invoice, so hopefully our certificate comes today and we can start this week.

But my takeaway is that ICARE are seeing many more builders going under than we hear about in the media, so everyone make sure you do your due diligence.

In other news, the home at 52 Eton Road Lindfield sold for $7.35m last week. So that really sets the benchmark for the western side of the Pacific Highway.

Here is the link:

https://www.realestate.com.au/property/ ... -nsw-2070/

We genuinely believe ours is in a better location and is a much better site.

I am also confident our build quality will be better. Ours is in a very quiet cul de sac with well maintained homes with perfectly manicured lawns and is also perfectly flat. So maybe we can achieve over $7m. There is certainly money around in that price range.

Anyway, I dont want to get carried away, still keeping $6.5m in my feasibility and anything above that is a bonus.

We also have a potential Karen as a neighbour.He wants all demolition done without any noise.

This seems to be getting more and more common these days, No body wants their neighbour building a nice house beside them these days. Literally every single site we have minus one we have at least one crazy neighbour.

I try my best to be cordial, but sometimes it's so hard and sometimes the requests and demands are so unreasonable, I swear it's only a matter of time before I get an appearance on ACA. I am not running though and trying to smash the camera. I have had media training so I am standing my ground and facing it like a man

I was on Chanel 9 news a few years back......should I post the clip for a laugh???

Anyway, enough rambling. Fingers crossed this is the week to start

I will do an update when I have news

Cheers

Simeon

Happy Monday Everyone,

Well, the great news is we finally started work on Saturday!!

It wasn't without incident. I arrived at around 8.15 to find the demo crew standing out front looking confused.

Apparently my Karen neighbour had told them we couldn't start as he hadn't received notification that works were commencing ( FYI notifications were sent on the 27th May 2024 and he had been communicating with my partner via the email address that was provided in the notification).

We really try our best to be professional and do everything by the book as shortcuts generally cost you in the long run and there is so much oversight now from councils and work cover etc.

Anyway, our asbestos crew are super professional as well and had all their paperwork in order including the required notifications to work cover, so we were all good.

I told them to get to work and put my professional happy face on.

So the asbestos and hand work has been completed. I think on Wednesday we are getting the excavator to do the big stuff.

Here are a couple of photos from Saturday.

Till next time

Simeon The asbestos crewAll masked and suited up. Were also hosing everything down to reduce dust. Super professional crewLike  ⋅  Add a comment  ⋅  Pin to Ideaboard  ⋅  Share
 The last pre demolition photoLike  ⋅  Add a comment  ⋅  Pin to Ideaboard  ⋅  Share

Hi Everyone

Heaps of people have been asking for an update, so here goes.

In summary, we finally finished demolition yesterday and we are starting the pool today.

We got caught up in a demolition sc@m, where the contractor parked his 23t machine across our driveway and demanded $15k upfront payment before doing any demolition work.

This quickly escalated into threats of violence and threats of loads of asbestos being dumped onsite etc

It really gave me pause for thought, because as seasoned construction professionals we know how to stand up to these type of tactics, but if you are Mr and Mrs Smith and one of these Lebanese contractors do this to you and threaten you, I would imagine it would be very tempting to buckle and pay the money.

I genuinely am not being racist, I absolutely love the Lebanese culture and people ( I have some of the most wonderful Lebanese people that work for me, and hell, I am a doggies supporter!), but I have to be honest that there are some really underhanded tactics in demolition and I guarantee you that it is the Lebanese contractors who are the culprits. Not all of them though.

We did our research, this guy Khaled from Madinah Civil was recommended through our apprentice who had become gym friends with him. We met Khaled several times and interviewed him. He came across as super polished and professional, but in the week leading up to him starting there were a few odd things that were happening that made my spidey senses go off. So I suggested to my partner that we use someone else. I didn't win that argument unfortunately.

There was a delay getting to site and many different excuses. Remember if you lie keep track of your stories. The truth always comes out.

His subcontractor came and took the asbestos out, very professional. Then Khaled made more excuses for a week or so about why his machine was not coming. Mainly that the truck was never turning up. The truth was that he had another job he was probably extorting money from.

Then he delivers his excavator, parked it across the driveway to prevent access and demanded an immediate payment of $15,000 and a daily charge for his machine being idle onsite.

No amount of reasoning and negotiation over a week worked, we even offered to pay him the $15,000 after he did 10 mins of actual work. In hindsight this seems ridiculous, but we were trying to keep things moving and peaceful.

Anyhow, when it became clear that he wouldn't budge we had a 28T machine delivered to site to move his smaller one out of the way. That is when things really escalated. But you need to stand up to these bullies.

Anyhow, I managed to calm things down over the next day or so and I suggested a payment of $6,000 as sign of good faith to get his machine off site and pay for the asbestos removal. I had this in writing. He took the money and his machine, called safework to tell them there was no asbestos clearance certificate ( even though we had it in writing from him that he would supply it to us) and got us shut down for a week.

He thought he was smart and could extort more money from us by holding onto the clearance certificate (before you can demolish you need a certificate saying that all the asbestos has been removed).

We phoned Safework, explained the situation, all we needed to do was to hire a new company and get a new clearance certificate. Easy and cheap solution.

So we did that, got on with demolition, then a few days ago this guy Khaled from Madinah Civil finds out, wants more money and is now making threats of dumping illegal loads on our site as revenge.

He is so stupid he put this in writing. Like there is dumb and then there is really dumb.

We have spoken to the EPA and they are on notice. They can't do anything pre-emptively but as soon as it happens ( if he does) then they will be straight onto it. It's a $1,000,000 fine for illegal dumping of asbestos in NSW.

Anyway, the point of the story is don't let these standover extortion tactics work on you and don't go for the cheapest demolition price as I think this is a sign that they go cheap to get your business and then hit you variations and or stand over tactics for more money.
 This was taken when we still had one more load to goLike  ⋅  Add a comment  ⋅  Pin to Ideaboard  ⋅  Share

We had a pretty great experience building, but the one black spot was the demolition company.

The best way to describe it, is like dealing with those standover thugs who used to run the tow truck industry. You know where there would be a crash and then 3 tow truck drivers turn up and end up having a blue so they can be the one that tows your car to their preferred repairer.

It's as that type of culture has found it's way into the demolition industry

Second update in one day.

So what I didn't mention in my earlier post, was that we have found an amazing demolition company ( in case anyone needs one).

A group of young brother who are incredibly honest and reliable and priced competitively. I would have no hesitation in recommending them.

They are:
https://pilecivildemo.com.au/

Speak to Ayman Ph: 0436 931 689

In other news, we have had another record sale nearby, https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/prop ... -145456932

It sold for $7.7m a few weeks ago.

Chinese builder, the design was very nice but the quality was a bit average. for instance a lot of the gyprock walls hadn't been sanded, the joinery was quite poor with chips and cracks and runners that didn't work too well, the outside rendering was a bit average, and most of the fixtures and fittings had been bought in China and were a bit low end.

But from a distance it is a quite a grand looking home.

So I do think that there is some serious money around at the moment looking for a home.

The surveyor came today and marked out the pool and slab. I was hoping to start pool excavation but the machine didn't arrive. I have been promised it will be there first thing in the morning.

I will be over there, so if anyone wants to drop in and say hello you are more than welcome.

And finally in other news, those who have been following me know that we recently changed our design team to Architecture Insight. I absolutely love these guys.

So they designed this facade for a client of ours, I am absolutely in love wth this design and it was what I was trying to achieve with my old designers. I am so jealous, I threatened to steal this and build it on our site......if only I could be that cruel.

Take a look and see what you think....I just love the curved stairs and the 5.5m glass at the front.

Have a great weekend everyone

Cheers

Simeon

 How sexy does this look!Like  ⋅  Add a comment  ⋅  Pin to Ideaboard  ⋅  Share