The amateurs and newbies making a ton of money from developing property

When carpenter Mark Sellar scooped the top $1 million prize in a TV reality show, he decided to invest it all into becoming a property developer.

He teamed up with a mate in a development company and built a warehouse in West Melbourne. They later sold it for $12 million. Three more warehouses followed, then a complex of 69 townhouses in South Australia.

“It’s been amazing,” said Sellar, 33. “I just keep rolling the equity of one development into the next. Low interest rates now make projects more feasible for us with cheap money making them stack up.

“And I do like bricks and mortar as a good, tangible investment. I’ve dabbled in shares but I don’t know enough about them.

“With a property, you can put it on a 10-year lease with a good tenant and you know what you’ll earn for the next 10 years. With shares, one day you can have $1 million, and the next, nothing!”

Sellar is one of a whole new slew of people now trying their hand at property development, lured by the promise of great returns in an environment of historic low interest rates, an uncertain share market and big infrastructure spends.

It’s been a trend of newbies making the leap into the industry that’s caught the attention of property investor, developer and consultant Lei Feng. He’s being increasingly called in to advise on and manage projects for them, and trouble-shoot when things go wrong.