Why Building a Home in Australia Isn’t What You Think: The Real Story Behind Aussie Developers

 Follow me on my Socials! (https://www.instagram.com/duaynepearce/) (https://www.facebook.com/DuaynePearceBuild) (https://www.tiktok.com/@duaynepearcebuilder) Check out Dominic and his projects: 🔹 Bagnato Architecture — https://bagnatoarchitecture.com.au/about-us/ 🔹 Dominic's Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/the.invisible.architect Check out Duayne’s other projects: 🔹 Live Life Build — https://livelifebuild.com 🔹 D Pearce Constructions — https://dpearceconstructions.com.au 🔹 QuoteEaze — https://quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html Think you know what it takes to build or develop in Australia? Think again. In this episode, architect and developer Dominic Bagnato (“The Invisible Architect”) reveals the real story behind property development, busts common myths about builders, and shares why honest design and teamwork matter more than ever. Essential viewing for anyone interested in Australia’s building industry! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Dom’s Origin Story
• 9:52 Seeing The “Invisible” In Development
• 20:48 Buying Live On Instagram And DA Wins
• 32:38 Obstacles, Vendors, And Standing Firm
• 43:58 Buy Australian And Material Integrity
• 52:28 Housing Affordability And Joint Ventures
• 1:02:58 Volume Builders, Size, And Real Design
• 1:16:28 Craft, Family Life, And Right-Sized Homes
• 1:28:58 Storytelling Sells: Design That Pays

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 2:50

Hello guys, welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are in the lounge room today because uh it is stinking hot, about 36 degrees it was today, and we're currently getting a big thunderstorm here in Brisbane, so uh we've moved up to the house. But today's gonna be an absolute cracker. Uh, it could go for a very long time, but I'm super excited about it. We've just been talking off air and yeah, super inspiring and can't wait to uh tell the next story that we're gonna tell. So massive warm welcome to Dom, the invisible architect. Thanks, Dwayne. Hello, mate. You've come up from Melbourne today. I'm I'm super excited to have you. My wife has uh followed you for a long time, and uh she put me on to you. Uh she's been showing me I I try not to follow lots of people, but she put me on you. I'm the same as you, I don't follow a lot of people. And all the time she's like, look what he's talking about, look what these talking about. So um, mate, I love what you're doing. I think I think it's fantastic. And now learning more about you in a couple conversations that we've had, like you're a very inspiring human being.

SPEAKER_00: 3:50

Uh I want to know, I I don't think I'm inspiring. Um sometimes I really feel guilty, uh Dwayne, because people say to me, you know, your teachers, you're teaching us, but I'm just telling you some stories that have happened to me. Yeah, you know, they're they're just stories, and then they're real. And every builder's gone through it. Every designer, every consultant, every renovator, we've all gone through it. And you know what I've discovered from my profile? People are resonating with resonating with it because no one ever says it. As it is, they'll sugarcoat it, they'll they'll make it clinical, but no one ever says, no, it was a shit client. No, he was a shit builder. No one ever just says it as it is. Yeah, and I think people are starting to see in this world where everything's fake, everything's glossed over, everything's hunky-dory, not everything is hunky-dory all the time, but there were some funny stories as well. And I I like I like telling the stories that have happened to me in my life. Honesty is the best thing, mate.

SPEAKER_02: 4:46

Like, that's what happens. I guess I guess to give the listeners a bit a little bit of a background. So you're um, if people don't know you as invisible architects, so you're you're an architect, you're a builder, you're a developer.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

So I started my life wanting to be an architect. So I I'm one of these rare people, you know, seven-year-old kid wants to be an artist. Yes, that's what I wanted to do. And when you're at university, you have to take out a compulsory year out to get some sort of life experience. You have to. So I got a job with an architect and started falling asleep at the drawing board. And I had a heart attack, thinking, hang on here, I can't stay in this office all day, every day. This is gonna kill me. So I started to think to myself, what am I gonna do? This is not my world, but I want to be an architect. So my mates and I, we bought a house. We're 23 years old. It's Melbourne, 1990, interest rate 18%, and people are complaining now. 18%. So we bought this little terrace, this little cottage, and we spent a year renovating it day and night, because we were gonna make a killing, the four of us. Anyway, we went to sell it, we got our money back, lost a year of work, and the interest repayments were higher than the reno. And then when we went back to do the final two years, we were really good at what we were doing because of that experience of physically renovating a house. So when we did finish university, there was a recession in Melbourne in um uh 92. And I had started this um graphics business. It's like a digital agency today, but we did uh drawings by hand. I was working for agents, I was I had a I had income coming in, and I said to myself, you know what? I said to myself, you know what, I'm not gonna work for anybody. I already have income. I'm gonna open up an office doing graphic design, and that's where I'll start my life. And what I didn't know was that these agents that were feeding me all this work for the newspapers, for selling houses, floor plans, they were the first gatekeepers for property developers. So when the market turned, they would ring us and say, you know, you're drawing all these houses for us that are going into the newspapers because we're selling, but we've got all these developers who are buying these projects. Do you want to design them? And so we started getting all this work. You know, we had all these agents across Melbourne feeding us work, feeding us work, and the market took off, and we were right at that point. And I remember a rep coming in from a building supply company, and he'd say, You guys are always happy when we come to visit, you're optimistic, you're excited. We had about one job, two jobs. Whereas the um long-established companies were, you know, were coming out of a recession, it was doom and gloom. So I became the accidental um architect for all of the development people that were coming through our office. But I got the I got the name the invisible architect from them because we were young and hungry, and so we were attracting young and hungry first-time developers. So between us all, we were trying to find our way. And we realized to be able to buy properties and compete with the big boys, we had to see something in these projects that they couldn't see. And basically, that would allow us to go to a public auction or a for sale and buy a property because they may see something. So I'll give you an example. They can see three units for this site, we can see four. Because we can see four, we can pay more. And so they used to say to me, Dom, how do you see this invisible shit? How is this invisible shit? So after all a while, you know, the name the invisible architect, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 8:21

So that was around before the all the Instagram stuff. Oh, wait, this is years ago.

SPEAKER_00: 8:25

This was in the um, this is in the um you know, from 2000 onwards. Yeah. And so, but not only was it something for that I did for my clients, I started looking for properties that um I could see invisible attributes. What can I see that they can't see? How can I go and buy this and beat all my competitors on the day? And so I started doing that. And I would be heckled at auctions. Melbourne's a big auction um state. So I go to an auction and I'd let all the people bid and then I'd come in over them and pay more. And I would have developers and builders say, You're a fucking idiot. What are you doing? You're only gonna get two on here. And I would get four on there and bring the per unit price down. That so I started getting a name in my local area for that sort of person. Yeah. Um, and and to this day, this is what I do. I look for things that I know I can beat you at buying, not because I have more skill or more money, I can see something you can't see. And I hedge my bet. Now, it sounds risky, but I have not done a project where there isn't a plan A, B, hopefully there's an even plan C. So it's not all winner takes all. I can see something that. And so um earlier this year, I did a after I came off a podcast similar to this, and I was telling people, you should look for these properties, you should find them. If you're a first-time buyer, for God's sake, get together two couples and buy this. So four weeks uh, a few weeks after that, I found a property and I bought it. And I went on Instagram, I said, right, I'm doing it live. Everyone's teaching retrospectively. Oh, three years ago we did this, I'm gonna do it now. I'm gonna buy a risky, well, what would you think is a risky property, a really difficult site, super constraints. I'm gonna take you through the journey of me getting sorry, there's an existing dwelling here and getting a second dwelling on it. And two couples should have bought this because they would have gone into the market and they would have had instant equity in their projects, the deposit. And so that all went through really well. And I had heaps of hurdles. I documented all the fights I had with the agent, with the vendor, with the banks, so all the good stuff, all the bad stuff, documented it, and eventually tasted success, development approved. And so I'm replaying that at the moment from a new audience because obviously that audience was smaller, so that's that's going through at the moment.

SPEAKER_02: 10:48

So, did you take that through to completion and build the project?

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

No, so we got DA approval, yeah, and my social media presence skyrocketed. So now I'm going, I can I can't concentrate on that development, I'll park it, right? And so I've got a tenant in there at the moment, yeah. Um, and that's a project for next year. Yeah, um, but I was rapt that I did it live because you can talk about it, you can brag all you like. I can tell you the 40 projects I've done, it doesn't really mean anything in today's world. But I wanted to prove to people, you know, so this property, so I'll I'll tell you the story. It was it's in an area where the median price is 1.2 million. Now, it's unrenovated, so you would think it'd get less than that, one to one point one. But they were marketing that property at 850 plus. And so we did a bit of homework, my wife and I, and we documented this on Instagram and social media. And I thought to myself, I'm not going to the auction because they haven't, this agent's something's something's fishy here, right? And so we made up our mind, we're not going. It's a two, it's it's a difficult side anyway. So on the Saturday, I woke up, my wife goes, Can you go and buy milk? And why are they doing a little bit of grocery shopping? Okay, all right. So I looked at my wife and I thought, shit, it's 12 o'clock, that auction's around the corner. I think I'll go. Just to watch what people do. So I get there, and there's not a soul in the street. I mean, nobody. And Melbourne's a big auction. I said, So I went up to the agent, I said, Have I missed the auction? He goes, No, it's gonna start now. He said, not a dog, not a neighbor, there's nobody here. I said, Who's gonna buy it? He goes, You are. I said, What do you want? He goes, Oh, we want a million bucks. I said neat, don't you've been quoting$850 to$860? He goes, Well, that's what you want. I said, Okay, no worries, I've got to go buy milk. Right? So I started walking off and he goes, Oh no, come back. He goes, What will you pay? I said,$850. He goes, No. Went in, came out, and he said, he said to me, the vendor wants more. I said, I'll give you$860, six month settlement, five percent deposit, and I'm gonna start walking to my car, right? So he runs out and I signed it up. So I get home, I said to my wife, I bought a house. And you know what she said? Where's the milk? She used to even say I bought a house, but I got really good terms. Yeah. Anyway, so that's how that journey started. But it started off like that, but heaps of things went wrong. Because and one of the fundamental things I documented that I'm that I would teach people, and I've never made this error, is I had a handshake agreement with the agent and the vendor that they would give me access. They had all these drawings, documents they had provided, and they were enegged. And I didn't put it in the in the contract. Yeah. And I got a bit rattled that day because I didn't go there to buy, didn't have any money I meant for a deposit. It was all done on a tablet. I knew the agent, fatal mistake, and so everything started going downhill, and I documented how I got around that.

SPEAKER_02: 13:55

Yeah, that's all really valuable information for people to be aware of. People, a lot of people feel that developers make too much money. They don't. They don't make a lot of money, but so many people misunderstand what's involved.

SPEAKER_00: 14:09

It's very, it's look, it's very technical, but but that but it is a system. And if you follow the process, you know what it is? There are no problems, there are obstacles. There's a and there's a major difference. Because if there's an obstacle, you either gotta go over the top or you've got to go around it, and then you get to the next one, right? Because a problem will halt you in your in your process. So I just see everything as as an obstacle. Okay, so the vendor is an asshole and he doesn't want to give me access. Why is he an asshole? So I did a bit of history. It turns out he paid too much for it five years ago, and now he's upset that me have I've come along and I want to develop it. So he's upset. So he doesn't want to give me access. And so I I documented all this and he's uh he works at one of the big banks and he's been a real smart ass in his in his commentary and in his emails. And then he rented the house during settlement period, which he meant to inform the buyer, but he didn't. So I slipped a note under the um tenant's uh door and said, Will you give me access? And what for? This is what I needed to be done. And if you're good, you can stay on after whatever. And so he gave me access, but it all went uh south after that. They got lawyers involved and this involved, but I did all my homework and and I know and I documented all this. Now, this is the first time all this sort of stuff has happened to me on a property, but I'm glad it did because I was able to teach people what do you do when you've got an asshole vendor? What do you do when you've got an asshole agent? What do you do? You dig and you dig.

SPEAKER_02: 15:42

How'd the agent go? Did they see your uh recordings and videos of this?

SPEAKER_00: 15:46

Because he became part of the problem. Yeah. I I don't know where the attitude came or or why this roadblock. Sometimes you just don't know. Sometimes you meet narcissists, people that are narcissists. You just you just what do you do? You've got you got to deal with it. So I I put together an ask what I say to people is when we go to council to get a permit, I put on a lawyer's hat. It's not council's issue to um it's it's it's not my right to get a permit. I have to convince them of the merits of a permit. Would you agree? Yeah, I have to demonstrate. Yeah. So when I come across obstacles, arseholes, I have to mount a case to get them out of my way. And so I mounted a whole bunch of stuff and they backed off when I started digging really deep. Yeah. So so I I if the if people watch that series, they saw that I became quite tough, you know, in in my stance. I I hate people, I hate being ripped off. Worse still, I hate seeing people being ripped off. And so the moment that happens, you you have to stand guard. Yeah. Because people will walk. This is not the development world, just in general. People will walk walk all over you.

SPEAKER_02: 17:53

Yeah. Mate, I've got a few questions here because I want there's a few things that like that you talk about on your videos and things that I'd like to try and talk about today because I think it's important. Okay. Some of them uh might be a little bit controversial.

SPEAKER_00: 18:05

Yeah, you said you were going to mention it. You're the first person, let's go for it.

SPEAKER_02: 18:07

That um we'll see where we end up there. But um, you've already sort of well, you touched on a little bit, but during our conversation before we started recording, you started talking about how you ended up on social. Um if you could talk us through that, but a little bit more brief than what we had earlier.

SPEAKER_00: 18:26

Look, to cut a long story short, I won't go into great detail, but I had an uncomfortable event at a Melbourne hospital where I died on the operating table before the operation began. But we won't say why. Just say bad things happened to me. After that event, I was quite a broken person physically and mentally as a result of that. And so I um decided to go on socials because I was sitting at home watching TV, and all I could hear is first-time home buyers say, we can't get in the market, we can't get in the market. And I knew I could teach them that they can get in the market. So I got on socials basically to say to people, look, it's not always about the interest rate, it's not about the deposit, it's it's it's there's a system in place. It may be you can't do it alone, you can do it in collaboration with someone else. Let me show you how. But I didn't really take it seriously. At that stage, I probably had a couple of hundred people. That was it. And so that's why I jumped on socials to see if I could help first-time home buyers. That was my I thought that was my audience.

SPEAKER_02: 19:30

Yeah, no, um, I think you're helping a lot more than just first home buyers, mate. That's from what I see anyway. But um, she's a world podcast today, she's thundering and rumbling outside. Um these aren't in any particular order. I I just as I've seen some of your stuff on socials that I wanted, and when I knew you were coming, I just wanted to make sure we um I got it across. So, like you're I I'm big on this one as well. You um you've got pretty strong opinions on buying Australian when it comes to building.

SPEAKER_00: 20:01

So's my wife, actually. She's probably even stronger than me. Um it's it's not that I'm anti-importing, anti overseas, anti-nothing. You know, you know how you go on a plane and they always do the that that stuff before you take off the emergency stuff. And what do they say? They say please put your oxygen mask on first and help yourself before you start helping your kids and your husband, right? Yeah. So my theory is can't we help ourselves first as Australians? Can't can't we help ourselves first? And then and then then we'll help others outside of our world. At the moment, we're struggling. We we need to help ourselves, yeah. And so, you know, we all say yes, yes, yes, but we we're not. So if you help by Australian, it's gonna help now. But but I also get it that the cost of living is horrendous. So I'm not here to preach, I'm just here to say what can we do? Yeah, oh mate, um, I agree.

SPEAKER_02: 20:59

I I actually just um only a few weeks ago finished um listening to um Dick Smith's audible book. Oh wow, and mate, I I look growing up, I heard of him, knew of him, but I didn't really know the insides to it, but what an incredible person! Like the way that he supported Australia is he was unbelievable. Yeah, he was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00: 21:17

He was in my era, he was unbelievable. Like, my wife is launching a product at the moment. We know it's we could do well by going overseas, and she just looks me in the eye and says, No, Melbourne manufacturer in our locality. Yeah, she's not gonna budge. Yeah, so fine.

SPEAKER_02: 21:34

I think well, the the cost is only one part of it. Like when it comes to building materials and things, like so many of the imported products are full of just unknown chemicals that we're then putting in people's homes.

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

I got caught on a project, luckily, very early. We were putting some cladding on a commercial project, small project, and the carpenters rang me. You go, Dom, you've got to get down here. We nail it, it's cracking while we nail it. I said, It can't be. This is fire rated, it comes with certificates, it's everything's above board. Dom, we don't trust it. And I went there and it was only their gut instinct. This is the carpenter's gut instinct. I said, All right. So we rang up the the building supply company in Melbourne who went and did further homework to discover it wasn't from Western Australia, as the Labour's all said. It was coming from overseas, relabeled, fake certificates, and they got caught out. And hence we got caught out. Yeah. And luckily we were able to they they gave us a refund, but but that's that's the sort of thing we experienced, yeah. We did.

SPEAKER_02: 22:33

Yeah, mate. I I think yeah, the more we can support Australian businesses, and um it's a shame that manufacturing's gone so downhill now.

SPEAKER_00: 22:42

But I feel for the joiners, the cabinet makers, yeah. I can't tell you um doing how many calls we get, you know, they're they're suffering because the reality is they can get the what some form of joinery at half the price they can. Yeah. So how do you tell our Australian guys they can't compete? Yeah. I I feel for them, because they're they're the ones I'm getting the most calls from.

SPEAKER_02: 23:06

Yeah, well they they are impacted a lot because of all these I won't know names, but like you can go and buy all these kitchens, kitchens off the shelf now.

SPEAKER_00: 23:16

And um well now they're see once upon a time, you know, um, you know, you had to go to China or wherever you were going on your own to do all that. But now there are middlemen and companies set up in Australia that look like Australian showrooms, they act like Australian showrooms, you wouldn't even know. They tell you they're getting it from overseas, but they've they've um they've taken away the barrier of fear. Yeah. You see? Yeah. And they just take a commission. So even if the Australian company Quotes 100 grand and that middleman person can get it for 40 but quotes you 60 they win, they win, but the Australian one doesn't win. Now it's gone to that next. I call that the next level because before that builders were taking risks. We've got to go to China, we've got to go to whatever. Now they don't have to do that anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:06

They can just do it from here. Yeah, no, it's definitely a shame. We need to definitely need to support Australians. Um I'm not sure which order to go in here, but um just chuck them out. I'll chuck them out there. So um housing affordability, you've touched on a little bit with the first home buys. It's something I'm I'm very passionate about.

SPEAKER_00: 24:26

Okay. I know I uh housing affordability. I get it that people want to live close to amenities, train station shops in a city. And and I did when I first got home. I I wanted all of that as well. And I knew I couldn't with the money I had, and when I married Marie, I said, we can't do that. And she said, What are we gonna do? I said, We're gonna have to buy a shit box somewhere, like a real rundown something outside of our area, and start with that. What are we gonna do with it? Well, we're gonna put two units on there, and we're gonna either sell them or live in them, and we're gonna have to, and I turned I made uh what I said to her was hop, skip, and jump. We'll do that one, then we'll do that one, and for and hence why my kids hate me. 14 times we've moved, right? But that's what it takes sometimes to get to where you want to go in life. Now, I I've always lived in something we've designed or built or developed. I have never built a forever home, which is my next agenda. And and so so for those first-time home buyers, I say to you, especially today, it is hard to do it on your own. And it was hard to do it on my own back then. So if it's hard to do it on your own, go to the next level and say, is there a couple we could join forces with or an individual? So, in other words, can you do a joint venture something? I'm not saying own one home together because that's not good. Can we do a project where the two of us end up with something? So it could be you buy a property, you subdivide it, one couple gets the house at an agreed value, the other couple the land at agreeable at an agreeable value. You can do all the mathematics at the beginning, and if the net result is a$200,000 profit, you both end up with$100,000 equity in whatever that may be. So the person that keeps the house, it may uh owe them$700, but it's worth$800. The land might owe them$500, but it's but it's valued at$600,000 and there together you've bought it, you've gone to the bank, you can then separate that deal and go to the bank and say, hey, I've got a deposit. It's in the property. So it can't be done. Yeah. But I get it. Who do you trust to guide you? Because the average person doesn't know the process, do they?

SPEAKER_02: 26:39

Yeah, no, that's the part that is the hard part. Well, it's the part that you're gonna help with. But um well, that's that leads into my next one volume builders. Like, I'm not a fan of volume builders, uh, but I I do think they play a part because they do offer affordability, not so much quality and things.

SPEAKER_00: 26:57

Depends which hat I'm wearing. If you if I'm wearing the architect's hat, shocking because volume building is designed to make it affordable for the average person to get at home. So let's put that aside for a minute. But from a design point of view, they don't take into consideration what an architect or any designer would do is where how does this sit on this particular site? Where's the sun coming from? Uh, where should the courtyards be? Where are the windows? It doesn't matter. The design's pre-done for a block. So architecturally, it's the wrong solution. And architects in Australia weren't doing that in the 60s and 70s. Even the volume builders weren't doing it. This is a recent trend, right? So from that point of view, I think it's wrong. It's wrong. And then they take that design and put it on that block and that block and that block and that block. And that block. And and for and and you know, it's disheartening. Now I put on the average mum and dad's hat. They deserve a home, they deserve some shelter. Who am I, this punchy architect, to tell them they can't have that? Of course they can have it. And and so and so it's conflicting for me because yes, there's a place for volume builders and there's a place for architecturally designed homes. Can't the two meet? And the reason the two can't meet is it is a third party, the friction and the red tape at council. Because if it was made easier for the volume builder, they would probably would do it. Because they were doing it. If you look at all the old shows on TV, the 60s and 70s, beautiful architecture in Australia, they were doing it. Yeah. And someone asked me the other day, Don, when did it all change? Now, I don't have any evidence of this, and I'm making this up, but I think it changed when McDonald's and the big fast uh food chains arrived in Australia, not because of their food, but they introduced something that we that was foreign to Australians or any country in the world, and that was fast, quick stuff. You want to eat? Eat now. Burger, chips, right? That introduced fast fashion, fast building, fast disposable everything. Make it quicker, make it faster, make it disposable, right? Buildings of the past have been around for a thousand years. Our current buildings, they're not going to be around for that long. So we're now in a disposable society. So everything's changed.

SPEAKER_01: 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

Building practices, materials. I'm embarrassed sometimes when I see some of the materials. No, it's shocking, mate. I'm embarrassed. Yeah. You know, we push clients for simplicity. We say, let's do it simple. Really, what we're saying is let's make let's make it last forever. It's really hard to convince people. Volumes do builders do one more thing that we can't do. They get they give you what they actually say. Size. Well, that's that's what uh prompted this question. Size. How can you look? I had a client who I designed a home for in inner Melbourne, did extremely well. Young, young kid, a real go-getter, married, two kids, sold for three million on top of the world. He could now upgrade. So he's like a first-time buyer. He rode the wave. So he's doing the next best thing, move into an affluent suburb. So he rings me, Dom, I bought a property for two million. I want you to design it. Well, Marie to design it, my wife. Excellent, George. All good. Rings me a couple of weeks later, he goes, Dom, I don't think I can get you guys to do it, can I? I said, That depends, George. How much money do you have? He said, I've only got another two million dollars. And that sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? But not for what he wanted. He said, What do you want, George? 70 squares, pool. He named the whole. I said, that can't be built for that price. I'm so sorry that forget it. There's no builder I would know that could do it for that price. Well, I can get one done from a volume builder for 1.2 million. 70 squares pool. And he sent it to me and it was a Georgian house. Yeah. I said, George, this doesn't even face the right way. North at the back, and this is like nothing works. I know, but it's big. It's got a pool, rumper's room, home theater, cellar. I said, George, it's not gonna be you loved your other home because it had actually designed. This is generic. I'm sorry, Dom, I can't I can't get you guys to do it. So they give size. Yeah. What do what is your opinion on size? I can't I think uh my wife has been look, it's good. This is almost hypocritical, but it's not. So we've been begging our clients for years, instead of giving us giving you this, can we can we give you this? But a jewel, like the most architecture, the most beautiful designed for that, for that brief, for that money, instead of stretching the money to this, but they won't. And they won't. And so, you know, if you see our Marie's portfolio of work or our portfolio of work for clients, it's luxury homes and size, and they just don't come down. And you're gonna ask me, but why? It's not because they need it. It's never been because they need it, right? It's because um they have to we talked about stories before. They need to tell a story to their friends. The story is this look at us, we've made it into big bad world, we've got 40, 50 squares, cars, we've got it all. We've made it. You can't tell the same story with a beautifully designed little box. You just can't. It's a different story altogether. The story will be well, couldn't you afford a bigger thing? Don't you have a cellar? What only two cars, no swimming pool? That's all it is. I I and in fact, we had one client ring us and he said, Dom, you don't know me, but I live in an 150 square home. I said, Shit, that's a lot. He goes, Yeah, my kids are in the kids' wing. My wife is in the wife wing, and I'm in the boys' wing. I said, Yes, what would you like us to do? And he goes, We're selling. I want to see my family again. I want you to design me a smaller home. My wife designed a smaller home for us. I want my kids back in my life. I thought, shit, he's wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 32:29

Mate, I Shay's gonna be hating the lighting here. The uh sun's down and it's coming straight to the window.

SPEAKER_00: 32:35

Having said that, I'm one of seven kids, nine in the family, and we had a 45 square home, which is large, super small for our family. Yeah, but we're a big family.

SPEAKER_02: 32:46

But we're mate, I I think it all I'm not a fan of big homes, even though my building business builds big homes. Like you say, like that's our clients um want that. We're definitely taking a bit of a stance moving forward. Like a lot of the work coming up over the next two years, uh, just through what we put in our in our socials and stuff, we are attracting clients that want that dual. The smaller home, a lot better designed, healthier. Beautifully designed, yeah. Um, which really excites me because that means that like myself and my team and my trades, like we can get back to being more craftsmen, we can put more detail into our jobs, more time into our jobs. Um, but again, everything's got a purpose. The volume builders build for a dollar value, but I do find one thing that I do really struggle with is people see more value in the size of their home over the quality of their home.

SPEAKER_00: 33:37

But can I tell you why? This is gonna sound terrible. Clients are dumb, they don't understand quality. If I had a skirt in to that match, what's a skirt in? That thing there, oh yeah. The mitre doesn't work, what's a mitre? That's when they two join, they're not they're not, they're not joining. You can go through the whole building and pretty much 80% they'll just say, Oh, and so it's ignorance, it's not their fault. And it's it's the professionals at us that have to teach them the difference. That's why you get clients that are walking to a beautifully built home or designed, and and this is what they'll say. There's something about this house I love, and I just can't work out what it is. You know what it is? It's it's it's it's there and it penetrates them, but they can't say it because they don't know how to say it.

SPEAKER_01: 34:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:18

Um, but you and I can walk into the opposite and say this is a piece of rubbish, because we know, right? So, how do we educate them?

SPEAKER_02: 34:26

Yeah, how do we educate them to have this beautifully crafted house? But back to what you're talking about with being disconnected from family and stuff. Like that that's what a big home does. It does. But when you have a big ham home with extra rooms, you start to drift. You don't you stop having family dinners where you all sit at the table because someone wants to sit over there and someone wants to go and watch TV while they're having their dinner. So I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

The only thing I get, Dwayne, is this where I'll contradict myself just a little bit. So as a young architect, we'd be designing houses, right? And then at some point it we'd always get this sort of client. Um, we want to add an extension to our home or whatever. Uh our kids are teenagers. And I never used to understand why, right? How come all these people keep turning up at teenager level? And so we've got a small house, so I don't have a huge home. And when my kids turned teenagers in the past few years, I got it. It was a bloody nightmare. What did they have? They're right next to us, right? And their friends are in the same room, and there's no peace. No, like we and so that's when I realized the importance of the second living space, right? I get it. Yeah. Because you just need that space, but that doesn't mean a sell up, a rumpus room, you know. It just means okay, and uh a second space so they can grow and and and with their mates and and be and you want them in the home, you know. So I get I get that. I do get that.

SPEAKER_02: 35:47

But people people do tie so much to the size of their home. Oh, yeah. Like it drives me insane. Um, and you touched on it again as well. Like everyone, no one wants to work their way up through 14 houses. Like everyone wants the everything they want in the first home they had.

SPEAKER_00: 36:01

We we did a house, 120 squares on one level, which is huge. And the tradesman used to ring us and I'd say, Oh, what are you up to? Oh, we're just at the front door, we're just having lunch. I said, Oh yeah. I'll ring it back later. Nah, by the time we walk to the back door, our lunch will be finished because it was so big the house, right? Because it was too big. Yeah, it was just so big. But can I tell you a lot of our clients who commissioned these big homes eventually sold? I I think it does eventually hit them. Yeah. What have we done? Not to mention the running costs. I don't think people understand what's happening.

SPEAKER_02: 36:36

We we've done some work for multiple clients over the years that have been in a position where they've lived in a home, they've they've sold a business or they've done really well and they want to move to the bigger house. And I get I I'm really involved with the early stage of all of our projects, and I try my hardest to explain to them because the amount of we know now, like the amount of clients that have never lived in a big house, and we get feedback six months, or more than likely, generally it's 12 months when we go back to do our um just inspection and um check the home and all those types of things. And one thing they complain about is the power usage, and yet they've got two zip taps and they've got multiple, or they might have a lift and they've got a cold room and they've got all this other stuff um that they'd never had in the smaller house. So it it's not just about having the big house, you've got to have the maintenance, but it but it boils down to do they need that stuff?

SPEAKER_00: 37:29

I I really think, and I'm not trying to be awful, it's what can we tell the Joneses? What are we gonna tell them? You know, I had a client ridicule me for years about the car I drove. I absolutely loved my car, it had nothing to do with money. I just love my car, right? Anyway, and he ridiculed me in front of other people, and it's quite embarrassing when you're gonna upgrade. Anyway, my car eventually died, and my son Max has restored it and now he has it. That client's gone bankrupt since then. So, where did it where did it get him to upgrade cars, upgrade houses and have all this? Where did it get him? And I'm still in my lane. Yeah, this is and I'm really proud of that. Yeah, I've always Marie and I have always, as a family, said no, this is where who we are, this is where we're staying. Even though we designed these most beautiful things for people, we're not tempted to enter their world. As much as they say, when are you gonna move out our way? No, when it's not even that we can afford it, it's not who we are, it's not what we want. We know we know the difference.

SPEAKER_02: 38:23

Yeah, I think that's a very important thing.

SPEAKER_00: 38:25

It's an important thing to know who you are. Um and it's and it's hard trying to live up to something that you're like. We know a family that's we designed their home at the moment, and then they have to sell because of financial issues, they're more worried about what people are gonna say. Not about whether they're gonna have no money. Yeah, what are people gonna say? Yeah, it's sad, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02: 38:44

That the world's got to that.

SPEAKER_00: 38:45

It's it's it's very sad.

SPEAKER_02: 38:47

Um, the next one that also sort of ties into what we're talking about. Like, um, you talk a lot that great design makes money. Does. And I I I believe it 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 38:57

Oh, I'm so convinced. I can't I can't tell you how convinced I am. Yeah. Um, I mean, as a I put my developer's hat on. I've always we we create stories in our building. So we we we know that stories sell. So we're keep stories is another word for good design or whatever, right? And you know, our last project, each of the each of the each of the townhomes sold way above our opposition, or we call them opposition or whatever you want to call them in the street, because we had a better design. Not more budget, same budget, just better design. And so we did a joint venture with the builder and we said, look, what are our budgets? He goes, and Don, we're on limited budgets here. Okay, no worries. So what have we got to play with? What are all our allowances? So, as designers, we went away and said, Okay, the builder's saying to us we've only got 200 bucks a meter for balustrading. What can we do with 200 bucks? What we where can we store some beautiful um perforated metal? And then eventually we came up with a design and we said, Does that meet the$200 a meter? He goes, Yeah. Same budget, yeah, just more considered design. That's all it is. And so we didn't beat our opposition because we had more money, we just had better design.

SPEAKER_02: 40:06

Yeah, that's it. It definitely adds value, and I I think it's more than just the finishes, and correct me if I'm wrong, the um like I believe as a builder I've grown a lot by being more involved in the preliminary stage. So I I go to a lot of the design meetings and I get to sit in on those things.

SPEAKER_00: 40:23

At the moment, it's Dwayne. I that wasn't the case for a long time. Yeah, but since COVID, it's coming into its own, which is really good.

SPEAKER_02: 40:30

But mate, just learning more about why the house is laid out a certain way, and like I I knew nothing about directions and all like air movement and flow and window placement and all those types of things.

SPEAKER_00: 40:41

There's a lot of stuff people you don't you see a drawing, but you never see the behind-the-scenes stuff as to why the drawing came into play. It's true.

SPEAKER_02: 40:47

Yeah, but that's true. But before, like as a builder that didn't know that, like I'll put my hand up, like I was a guy on site that the client would come in and go, Oh, let's move that to there. Like, I didn't know the reason behind it. So if they wanted it, I would do it. Yeah, yeah. Whereas now that I understand the whole process, I'll go, oh look, I I definitely wouldn't recommend that. Like, let's let's call the architect or the designer and let's you're very good.

SPEAKER_00: 41:10

That that's how it should be done. Because it should be we should work together, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 41:14

Yeah, but once you once you understand why you guys um like I I've I don't know how to articulate this.

SPEAKER_00: 41:21

But let me articulate another way. We will never we will we always design the planning, the the functional and planning of a home before we start looking at how the building looks. So, in other words, there's a there's a there's a lot of reasoning behind why the rooms are where they are, why the doors are where they are, why the windows do there's a lot of logic. So to move those things around is to change why we did it.

SPEAKER_02: 41:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Jesus storm's rumbling away, but um like the other thing that I've really noticed, mate, like when you when you have a well-designed home, or when you have a well-designed building, it is a home. Like if if it's just a a random building, it's a house. Like it's not a home, like, and there's a very big difference. And I can see it in the difference in our clients now. Like back in the day when we we weren't running a good business, we'll just like a lot of the time we were involved in tendering scenarios and we wouldn't meet the client until the day we signed the contract. There was no relationship there, and you didn't know the behind the scenes, so you just did whatever the client asked you to do.

SPEAKER_00: 42:21

Yeah, and that's but that a lot of clients still think like that.

SPEAKER_02: 42:25

Yeah, yeah. But it's it's it's completely changed because those clients back then, like occasionally there was, but there wasn't as much excitement. Like now, when we're involved in the whole design process and the house works, the design works, you get do you think it's because they see more on socials now, which it's more in their face, they can see design more?

SPEAKER_00: 42:48

Do you think that's why they start to be able to do that?

SPEAKER_02: 42:50

I just I just think it's the the process, yeah. I think it's about creating a team, like that whole collaboration of architect, builder, homeowner, um, and no one's there to control the process. You're all there to work together to get the best outcome. But when you walk into a project that's finished, like every client has tears in their eyes.

SPEAKER_00: 43:08

So it's it's you know, I my so my wife works independently of me, so she's got her own projects, her own clients. So I I try not to go into her projects until um they're finished. And so there's a couple of recent projects where where I I shed a tear, right? One of them was a house she's working closely with a cabinet, one of our cabinet makers, um who was very we were very fond of them, put it that way. So Marie does he finally did financially well to build his dream home. But this home wasn't an ordinary home, it was the first most of the Time we deal with the lady, believe it or not. The guy's there, but we dealt with with George, right? And his wife's gift to him was this is for you, George, this house. Do as you would like. So the whole home is designed reverse living. So living is upstairs because they've got these beautiful trees. And it's all designed around his passion for cars. So the house exudes metal, windows looking into cars. It's unbelievable. That's what I thought as I saw Marie designing it and the builders were building it. So when it was finished, he invited us for dinner. He wanted us to see it at night. So I walk in and I got really emotional because I could feel his love. This is the client. I could feel you know this gift he gave himself. But then he took me into another part of the house where it was uh um dedicated to his father who had raised him to have to be to dream big. And he had these cabinets with uh his father's uh things passed away, and I cried. What the hell's going on? He won, but this is a house, for Christ's sake. It goes to your point, it was designed. It's it's for him, and it you could see it in his house. And I had it with another smaller home recently that Marie did, where the the families bought the home, the kids bought the mum and dad's home, they passed away. But it was a uh uh you know, an immigrant's home. So Marie reinterpreted the home for him as a contemporary home, but didn't want to lose the essence of what it was like to be raised as little kids in the 70s. I don't know how she did it. But when I went in there, I could feel it. And when you and I'm a stranger, and I'm walking into this house crying, thinking, I can feel this. Hey, what's that, Marie? At the backyard, that's a toilet. An outdoor toilet. Why? Because they had an outdoor toilet when they were kids. Somehow you've made it work. And what's this room here? That's where they make salamis. Oh my god, a contemporary salami room. It's only a little house. How did she reinvented the feeling of the kids when they were little, but they're grown people now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 45:51

Well, you won't get that in a volume building.

SPEAKER_00: 45:52

You won't get it. So that's a little house. So they sp they were cle they were very good. No, we don't want that, all that money's going into this little home. And and then you know what they say to people when they go in? It doesn't feel little. Oh no, because it's designed well. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 46:07

Oh mate, I'm I'm all for it. I think everything we're discussing is it changes people's lives.

SPEAKER_00: 46:12

Can I give another example? Uh almost off topic, but the same. So I designed these little apartments, no car parking. Smallest was tiny, 35 square meters, and the biggest was 50 tiny. And I said to myself, what am I gonna do? Just give them white walls. I've got to give them something special because they're not getting much. I'm not giving them volume. And so I did these, uh, so it was opposite a tramway board in Melbourne. So we're big on trams in Melbourne. So across the road at night, park all the trams. So I gave this development the theme, the story of trams. So there's all these images and graphics in the apartments of trams, not literally, but you know, yeah. So you go into the little apartment, there's red brick walls, beautiful flooring. Anyway, the tenants moved in, and when it came to sell them, the tenants all begged to buy them. I said, Well, why? Why do you want to buy them? We love them. We love them. We're thinking, but here's the world telling us that it's too small, it's too small. Oh no, it's got everything we want. Everything. And it had everything, you know, because it was beautifully crafted. I I say like a jewel box. But you know what? It's not us. Even the local councils, even the government says you can't design homes like that that small anymore. You can't do an apartment that little. Oh, the banks won't lend you money if it's 50 squares or less. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah. Well, how about this? Don't lend money to apartments that are 50 squares or less if they're shit design. But if they've been designed and have a certification designed by an AD, plenty of storage, next to transport, tick.

SPEAKER_02: 47:43

Yeah. I think that's another big problem, mate, is everything's driven by finance. Finance. And like we we actually do get it quite often. And luckily, we work with some good architects designers that are very creative in their wording on the drawings. But yes, like these days, most things are driven by what the real estate says. If it doesn't have three bathrooms and three garages and multiple living rooms, then they won't say that it's worth a certain value, and they need that value for the bank to give them finance.

SPEAKER_00: 48:11

I I I I documented this story on one of my reels, but so one of the homes I designed him designed as was a town home for Marie and I. And um I could I couldn't give it to a local agent because by coincidence, the three local agents, all at the same time, we were designing their primary residence. I said to Marie, I can't give the house to that agent. He's gonna crack it, he's gonna crack it. Who's gonna sell our home? And she goes, You can sell it. So that's the last thing I want to be doing. But I went and got a board like you see on the houses. I got an A-frame, I did brochures, but all contempt my version of it. And I put the ad in in the paper back then. Uh, that's how it was done. There was no internet back then. And I was helping my brother move home and I got a call, it was a Saturday. A lady rings and says, Um, I saw your ad. I said, Yeah, first ad went in today. She said, Could we have a look at it tonight? And I said, I'm sorry, I can't. I'm helping my brother move. That's how we don't know about the process. How about tomorrow? No, we're going in the state tonight. We need to see it today. I said, Oh, okay. All right, I'll drive over to the other side of town, I'll meet you there. So I get there, I'm helping my brother move house, not even dressed appropriately. And I took them through the house like a as a guide. At the end, I said, I'll tell you what, if you want to stay in there and have a look on your own, so you know you can talk because who wants me around? Um, I'm just gonna sit on my front porch and read the paper. And when you're finished, come and grab me. They come out, and the agents all said at the time I'd get 300,000 for this house. This tiny little house. And um the lady goes to me, she goes, What would you like for the house? I said, Um, I think it's around 550. I said 550, I was like what way more than the agent. And she looked at her husband and and they looked at each other and they looked at me and the husband goes, Um, yeah, we'll take it. And I said, take what? And I said, the house. I said, Yeah, I want 550,000. He goes, Yeah. I said, Um, oh, I I've paid$2,000 of advertising. Um look, I'll just do one more item before inspection on on Monday. And and he took out his checkbook, because that's it's$2,000, take it off the market now. Anyway, I said, I don't even have a contract. I'll we'll take we'll shake on it. So we shook on it. And as we're walking out, her name was Christine. I've I never got her name. I said, Christine, why don't you buy my home? And and she goes, Storage. Best storage I've ever seen in my life. And it's true. We designed that house, flooded it with storage, yeah, built-in joinery, and design paid. I knew for luckily it happened, and I documented this. I don't know if you ever saw it, but I was scolded on my first design. Um, I did a reel, I designed my first solo project, three units. They were finished. I was very proud. It was open for inspection. I went incognito. I wanted to hear people say, Isn't he fantastic? Best architect in the world. And I followed these two ladies down the hallway and they're looking at each other, going, Can you believe what they've done here? But they would never, yeah, yeah, it's really obvious, isn't it? God damn, what's happening? Yeah, yep, yep. You can a man designed this house, a man designed this house. I'm like, what the hell did I do? Right. And then as they're walking out the door, she looked at me, she goes, Not a linen cupboard, not a storage cupboard, nothing. And they were right. I didn't put any in, right? And I learned that on my first lesson. Hence, 10 years later, when we did that house, yeah, that lesson paid off.

SPEAKER_02: 51:33

So mate, I think that's a massive one. And like we we could definitely talk for days, mate, and uh we'll keep moving on because I want to talk about developing. But just to wrap up on that, that's something else that I've really learned being involved in the design stage is um, and I think a very clear example of this, I'm not sure if it's the same in Melbourne, but if you drive around most sort of volume housing estates up here, the driveways and the roads are just covered in cars, caravans, boats, everything. And they're not in the garage where they should be because the garage has turned into just this big mass storage area. And yeah, I personally I believe for that sort of reason, like there's not like I found by being involved in this preliminary stage, like one one designer who worked for um Aaron in particular, actually, and Jason from Cloud Dwellers are very, very good at it. Like they I don't know how they do it, but they like dive into the clients' minds and they figure out what hobbies they have, how they live, who comes over on weekends, what sports do the kids play, like and they figure out where all this shit's gonna go. And then my wife does that.

SPEAKER_00: 52:37

I don't, right? But she she goes the next level when she does drawings because she does a lot of hand drawings before the computer drawings, she draws the clients in the drawings. And like, I said, What's that? That's the client having a wine. He loves having wine. She's got him sitting there in the wine, so she's thought about it. Um, she asked them all those questions, and you know, even the clients don't know that they need it. We've had clients, why is there three beans? Oh, you'll need three beans, don't worry. Or whatever it is, right? And I heard the best story the other day, not nothing to do with us, but this guy was telling me about a kitchen company. This lady they had hired to design their kitchens. I said, Oh yeah. She goes, he goes, Yeah, she came around for dinner for a whole week. So she insisted she has to have dinner with us and come an hour before to watch us prepare, and an hour later after we finish. Well, you had the stranger for dinner for a week. He goes, Yeah. I said, what for? She wanted to know how we cook, clean, and everything. And she designed our kitchen. This is the third one she's done for us. She's unbelievable. I thought that's the best advertising you've ever gonna get. Yeah, isn't that fantastic?

SPEAKER_02: 53:41

Yeah, well, you yeah, unless you're seeing it or hearing it, you you don't know what people how they live or eat their day-to-day life.

SPEAKER_00: 53:47

So not to push architects, because I don't know whether architects all do all do this, but this is what architects should be doing if they're not doing it. Dig dig in deep. And and and Marie, I always say Marie because Marie does dig in deep, whether it is because she's a female, whether she's a mother, I don't know. But she like she'll sit, she'll we'll be in bed. Um, I've got to write something down. What do you gotta write down? I've forgotten where they have to store their Christmas tree next Christmas. That's not built, and you're worried about where their Christmas tree is gonna go. Yeah, because when I spoke to them, they wanted one on wheels, and because they're elderly, they want to pull it into a storage cupboard. Okay, get up, go do what you have to do. That's the sort of talk we have, yeah. And you think it's crazy, but it's not crazy at all. But mate, those elderly clients will love that. They love it. Like, yeah, yeah. So I as a bloke, I probably wouldn't have thought of that to be honest with you. Um, but that's what design is, and the volume builders will never do it, you're right.

SPEAKER_02: 54:41

The um, so mate, let's let's move on because I really want to talk to you about development stuff, because that's um that's pretty much why Camille started showing me what you're doing. She's like, this guy just says it how it is, like, there's no bullshit.

SPEAKER_00: 54:54

Okay, so the the developing's got a really bad word, and I don't think it'll ever go away. But the reality is we all live in a development, do don't we? Do we not? You just happen to live in an acreage development, I live in a smaller. Someone developed something at some point, and I do believe, like I said earlier, it was the introduction of mass production that ended or or returned the word developer into a bad word. And I don't even know if we'll ever get it back because I can see from social media people really hate that word. But there are really good developers in Melbourne, I'm sure in up here as well, they do amazing work. Uh, they got amazing designers and they're proud of their work. You never hear about them, you only ever hear about the bad ones. Yeah, and and it's sad really because without them we wouldn't have any housing.

SPEAKER_02: 55:42

Yeah, development. Like a lot of people get into developing, like, they think it's a get rich quick, or they see people doing it, they they like the I call them mum and dad developers. Yeah, so do I think they can buy a block and split it or do a duplex or whatever, and um there's there's not a lot of people that do it more than once because they figure out how difficult it is. Um, but you but you're helping people get around that.

SPEAKER_00: 56:07

Yeah, I I I when I started this journey, I went back to have a look at not only the projects that I've done, but ones I did for my clients, because I did get this sort of client many times. Hi, my name's John, never done this before. Apparently, you know how to do architecture. Well, hang on here, what do you want to do? I want to be a developer, but you've never done it before. No. Okay, um, okay, so alright, so what do you have in mind? I've I've got this block, I want to put two units on it. And by this they did the first one, they did the second, and by the third one, they knew what they were doing. This went on for years, and a lot of those clients became multi-millionaires and great people. But I never sat down to understand what how did it happen? I'm watching this live. What's what did they have in them that was a skill that brought them from zero to be able to do this? And then it hit me one day is they didn't know they didn't need to know everything at the beginning, they just needed to know one thing. Who's the lead guy they got to go to to hire to create the team to create the scenario? So in Melbourne, during that time, they went to me or another architect. Dominic, can you help me? Yes, I'm your architect. Do you know what a traffic engineer is? No, structural engineer, no land surveyor, no building surveyor, no builder, no. Do you want me to build the team for this project? That'd be awesome, Dom. And what do they do? Okay, sit down. So we built the team. So they presented themselves, but we built the team and executed the project, built the next project, and by the third, they're in the trenches, they're learning. Of course they're gonna know the third time. And all that happens, happened over time as they got better, is the team members got swapped. This is a different project. Now you can't do that. So for me, is it's teaching the processes, but it begins with who's your first hire? Who's your now? I know people always think a town planner is right, and they are, right? Because people want to buy a block of land or a property and know what they can do with it. So the first thing they think is, I've got to know what I can do with it. A town planner will tell me, but a town planner is gonna recite data. The data shows that you can put two dwellings on here. Oh, awesome, let's go for it. But I practice that and more. The architect will say, There's more to this than meets the eye. There's more than two, we can do three. The town planner will challenge it because they're about data and we're about design. And this is where they meet to create something special. And this is what I want to teach people. It's called observation. You've got to remember across Australia, the rules are written as if every site is identical, but they're not. There's going to be sites where you have to challenge the council and say, I know what the rules are, it's not going to work on here. So for them for me, development is it is is achievable for the average mum and dad. All they've got to know is how to build that team. And but they don't have to build the team. Who help who can help them build the team?

SPEAKER_02: 59:05

Yeah. You you have to um like we've we've uh done quite a few developments over the years, and it's you've got to keep the personal out of it, don't you? You can't fall in love with it. We've had a few developments where we've we've got too in love with it, we've put too much into it, and then you know why you struggle to get it.

SPEAKER_00: 59:23

I'll tell you why you've done that. And and it's because you care, and you have a love of building and a love of design. It happens to anyone that has that love, and we do it. Marie and I are the same. Uh, I've got friends that are in this industry, the same. They do it because they love it. I've got a friend who's a builder, and that and he'll he'll say to the client, it would look better if we told the whole bathroom walls, we don't have the money for that. They turn up next week, the walls are tiled, and he doesn't charge them. Why does he do that? Because he has a love, right? When you have that love, yeah, it's very um, you know, you you you need people to draw you back. That that's why I enjoyed doing my last project with the builder because he paired us back. You can't have that, Dom. What? You can't have it, doesn't meet the budget. It's good to have that barrier or it's all part of the team, isn't it? Yeah, it's part of that tea.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:11

They're telling us, yeah. Yeah, and you'll get you'll always get the best results when you've got a quality team around you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:15

Yeah. The other thing is there's an answer for everything. Like, um, so when I said to you earlier I want to help or wanted to help initially first-time home buyers, I the experiment was my brother and my sister. So they came to me and in and they were going to get married, didn't have any money, and preached the same thing that everybody else does. Can't touch the banks won't touch them, they don't got haven't got enough deposit. And would I help them? So I found this little block in a laneway. It was only 180 square metres.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:47

The whole block of land.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:48

The whole block, right? The frontage on each one was seven metres by 15, tiny, something like that. I could not get any car parks in there, right? All I can get was two little townhouses. And I backed myself, and the council backed me as well, and I got I got development approval. Then I gave them unrealistic budgets. I said, right, the budgets on this is 200 and whatever, and 200,000 on this. Here's a breakdown of every item, and I'm gonna organise the building for you, and I'll help you with the get the finance because they put the resources together. But the budgets were between you and I super unrealistic, right? So, what would be an example? Okay, um, taps for the whole house, 500 bucks. Knowing full well, it should be 1500 bucks. So my sister-in-law comes to me and says, Oh, I found a tap for the sink, it's it's$500. The whole budget's$500, not per tap, right? You can't have the tap. And so she would spend three or four hours on the internet, and she came the next day and she said, I found the exact tap for 30 bucks. I said, Where? And she found it. And the next item, and the next item, and the whole build was them doing their research. As a builder, you want to like we can't give that time to a client to do that research. But they had time. So we built that to a budget with their tenacity and their research, which I can't, as a professional, give them because if I had to charge for all those hours, who'd spend four hours on the internet looking for a$30 tap? It's crazy, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:15

That's such a big thing, mate. Like people have no idea how much is going into it behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:19

There's a lot going into it. So that taught me a really valuable lesson because they moved in, had instant equity, loans, tiny little houses, no car parking, everything we spoke about before. Tiny little beautiful gems on a budget in a city, and they lived their lives and they had their first child there. I think they had their second before it was too small. Yeah. And now they're in homes, and they both kept those as an investment to this day. Yeah. So that's how they started their life. They didn't jump to the monster home. They they they started with the jewel box. And everyone said, No, car park, you're crazy. In a city, you're crazy. In a laneway? Who's gonna buy in a laneway? We didn't create two traditional townhouses in that laneway, we created laneway architecture. So when the people walk, and the people that walked down there were surprised by what we showed them. It wasn't what you would normally see. So you've got to tell the story.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:10

Yeah, yeah. You said something, man, that it was actually one of my questions because I saw it on one of your posts about there's um there's always an answer. Always. And you um you're big on there's always more than one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:21

Yeah, I was lucky, you know. I I we spoke about this earlier. You look back and you think, when did that mentor enter my life and leave? I didn't even know he went into my life. So I worked with this architect, the one where I said I was falling asleep for a year, and he called a meeting, and he all the architects and me, and I was a student, and he called the secretary in there, and he's asking us about this project he's designing, which was the Melbourne. In the bus terminal in the city. He's asking everybody questions, asking me. At the end he said, Can you stay back? And I said, Yeah. Is there something his name was Erman? And he goes, Domin, you look really puzzled in the meeting. I said, Yeah, you're asking me questions about I'm just a kid, I'm just a student. And Daddy, she's got no idea, she's a secretary. Why would you even ask us? And he said, Dominic, if the cleaner was here, I would have had them in here as well. Because everyone's got a brain and everyone everyone has an idea. And I will choose to use their their idea. And then he goes to me, Do you know what an architect is? I said, Yeah, he draws. He goes, No, he's a problem solver. He solves problems. There are no problems. There are always answers to every question. There's always an answer. You've got to remember that. So he taught me that everyone has a brain. There's an answer for everything. And the third one he says, don't ever pretend to know an answer. Like, don't ever, ever. You always say to someone, I'm really sorry. I don't know the answer to that question. I'll come back to you next week. He taught me the most three valuable things I took with me forever. And when I was working, something horrible it wasn't horrible. He was in Queensland, the Isle of Capri, designing a home. I'll never forget the house. And I was in the office by myself, a student with the secretary. Get a call from the Melbourne bus terminal builders, massive skyscraper. They got an issue with the escalator. Need someone there on site now. There's no getting the client back then. Mobile phones had just come in, right? We couldn't get a hold of anyone. And the secretary, Danny, she goes, You gotta go down. I'm just the kid. I'm not going down. She goes, You've got to go down, right? I said, Well, I don't I don't know how to answer that question. You've got to go. You gotta go. You got a thing dangling from a crane. So I rushed down there and I and I rushed through the hoarding, and the this big union guy grabs me. Where's your jackets? Where's your helmet? Where's this? You know, shit scared. Anyway, I get there, the got the escalator there, the guy drawings there, right? This dimension's wrong. You gotta tell us what it is. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I gave them the answer, what I thought was the answer anyway. And when I got back, I said, Danny, this could be my last day. I think Erman's gonna sack me when it comes Monday. I fucked it right up. You watch. So he comes back from Queensland, he calls me in the office. He goes, uh, heard you went down to the Melbourne bus terminal. I said, I did. Heard you gave him a dimension. Did you? I said, Yep. You qualified to do that? I said, I thought I was. He goes, How did you get the answer? I added up all the lines and one of them was wrong. So I re-added it and I thought I gave him the right answer. He goes, Yeah, okay. Well it was the right answer. Anyway, I tell you this because it's important to not pretend to know the answer. Number one. Number two is there's always an answer. You just got to find it. Yeah. And even we challenge councils. You know, you know what an RFI is? Yeah. You do a submission to council, they send you a request for further information. And in Melbourne, they tell you at the end, and by the way, these five points, unless you do something dramatically different, it's highly unlikely we're going to support you. So I write back and answer every one of them. Point taken, you're right, we can change this. Point three, no, I'm not going to reduce my setback. I think you're wrong. And this is why I think you're wrong. And here's the evidence that I suggest you relook at. We're not changing it. And we go through every point. And I'll ring them and I talk to them. And if I have to, I'll go to their team leader. I won't give up. I won't give up. I guess you think they're wrong. Not because I think I'm right. I actually think they're wrong. And people say to me all the time, how do you get these things through? Do you know people? No, I have a belief. I have a belief in this that this is this is the real answer. You know? Yeah. You better back yourself, don't you? Gotta back yourself. Now, having said that, you would you heard me say when they were right, I acknowledged it. No, you're right. We shouldn't have done that. That's that's unclear. That's you're right. But when I thought they were wrong, and and that's the thing. Some you've got to remember there are people assessing these applications, some are junior, some are more experienced. And you know, they get hundreds of applications and they've got checklists. Best email I ever got, it's not even a testimonial, but you might as well have been one. Two Christmases ago, Christmas arrived, and I got an email from a town planner at local council. That's unusual. Huh? I don't know if that's something that happens. Her name's Jennifer. I won't say this is how it went. Dear Dominic and Marie, I'm just letting you know today's my last day at this local council. I've been promoted as team leader at another local council, and she named it. I just wanted to say what a joy it has been to be working with you for the last 10 years. We have fought, we have battled, we have argued, but every time your applications have come into council, I have drooled over your work. I'm gonna miss you. And I thank you for the for 10 years of fun. If you're ever in this local council, look me up. I looked at Marie and I said, I thought she hated her our guts. We've been fighting with this lady for 10 years, and now she throws this at us, right? But the thing is, you know what I worked out, uh Dwayne? She has a she has a job, right? And that she has to go to work every day, and every day all this shit comes on her desk, uh, application after that, and then there's this one that challenges her. And instead of putting the hat of a town planner, right, that the council have told her to put on, she puts that away, she puts on her real hat. I am a town planner. Now I'm into a battle with Dominique, and we have a dance, right? She can practice her craft, finally. She's not ticking boxes, he's met the front step back, he's met he's met the uh Heritage Gonders, he's met this bastard wants to what 1.5 from the front. Who the hell does he think he is? Right? Yeah, so it's a it's a love affair, and that's all I'm asking them to do. I'm not asking them to just say yes to everything, but please consider it. And this is what I'm gonna be teaching in the course, which is hard because they've got to challenge their designer to do it. You know, we had a little exercise little this is ridiculous, but it's true. A friend of mine has got a car pot in Melbourne. This happened in the past three months. He just wants to put a roller door at the front, right? So now it's actually a garage, right? We submit the application in for three months it's sitting there. They're about to approve it when we they they send us an email saying the the internal traffic department is gonna refuse it. Because instead of it being 3.5 internal, 3.4. They're gonna refuse it. And we said, What the my wife went ballistic at him. Are you serious? Yeah, it doesn't make code. So we rang up our traffic engineer, we rang up here, we did all this homework to discover that the national standard is three metres, but the council's pushed 3.5, right? So I'll cut a long story short, after three and a half months, we bullied them until they said, All right, all right, we're giving you the permit. I said to my wife, do you think most architects would have done what we just did? She goes, No. No, they would have got that letter and said to the council, I'm really sorry to the client, I'm very sorry, but it doesn't make code. Well, we said, This is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:50

Yeah, a lot of people now that won't um like you just said with that town plan, a lot of people now just want to go to work, don't want any issues, and they just want to go home at the end of the day. They don't want to fight for things and put in any effort.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:02

How like what's a builder? Problem solver from the morning he gets there to the at night and the phone calls he gets, but it's never joy. Architects, that's all we do. That's all we do. But yeah, but you know what I mean. We all it's all we do all day. We solve. I listen to my wife, I laugh sometimes at some of the because she can't believe some of the things we're solving. It's ridiculous, right? And then you hear we've got to build hundreds of thousands of houses, and I can't get a garage door through. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's just the red. I I pulled out a drawing the other day that was 20 years old. A DA. It was clean, it was beautifully drawn, dimension. Now, and I pulled out the most recent one, it's full of red tape shit. And has anyone died as a result of it, you know, the red tape today? What I'm saying is, have we improved because of all the red tape, everything they brought into play? Has our lives have our lives improved? No. Have buildings got better? No, they got worse. Uh is it more affordable? No. So 25 years ago, when we didn't have to do all of these, meet all these standards, life was good. But now that we do, life is shit.

unknown: 1:12:08

How does that work?

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:09

Mate, I'm on the same page.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:11

I don't get it. I honestly don't get it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:13

This is the sort of juicy stuff I've I wanted to get into with you. Like, I agree a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:18

Like that if you see the drawings, one is so clean. When I say clean, lacking detail, yeah, this one's full of detail. You know? Um, for years in Melbourne, they've pushed us to put rainwater tanks, rainwater tanks. We're gonna save the world, save the world, save the world. They've just announced now, oh, we don't need rainwater tanks anymore. What what's happened? They did the same thing in Brisbane, mate.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:37

Like, what's happened?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:38

Is the world changed?

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:40

It was compulsory in Brisbane for a long time, mate. You had to have them, and yeah, then next thing all of a sudden you don't have to have them. But but again, even with little things like that, and that's probably a good example. There was no homework done on that. Or if there was, it was very poorly done. Because what happened up here? Uh where well, Melbourne's smaller, but our lots have gotten a lot smaller uh since the time that I've been building. No, in Melbourne as well, bad. So they wanted um it was a minimum of 5,000 litre water tank. So again, everyone pushed the house as big as they could, and then put these water tanks down the sides of the house, and then you couldn't fit past them, and it became an access issue, and then there was nowhere to put the wheelie bins, you couldn't get them down the back of the house, you couldn't mow your lawn because you couldn't get the wheelie bin down the backyard or the mower down the back yard. It's exactly a melbourne. So it it created all these issues, but the biggest one was, and like we became aware of it very quickly and started changing, but people were putting these five thousand litre water tanks on their home and running every downpog in the house to it. And like with the downpours we get up here, yeah, like you can feel that in two minutes. Yeah, two minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:44

And then all-I've got a 10,000 litre tank at my one at my beach house, it it it it it fills.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:51

Yeah, but then the issue with that is as soon as it was full, it's overflowing, it's creating mess, and then there's all these issues with overland flow, and it was it's just a nightmare. So it became and then the drought broke, so all of a sudden we don't need tanks anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:03

That's true. And the other thing that I missed too, and I know we live in a different world, but when I started my career, I would visit council at a counter and talk to the planner or talk to the building surveyor. So there was a dialogue, and because you work in the same locality all the time, you get to know the people there. That's all gone now. Yeah, um, I don't know what it's like here, but you can't go to council anymore. Everything is on on email or phone call. Um, it's it's we don't know who anyone anywhere. It's terrible. Yeah, yeah, no, it's not good. The interface is shocking.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:34

We've um I should have found you earlier, mate, maybe, but um one of our local our most recent developments is our farm. And uh we're coming up to three years, mate. So it it's taken it took two years and a shitload more money than we expected to get the DA through. And we are pushing the boundaries on a few things, but then we got the DA back in February, and I th we thought we'd be building there in August, September this year. We still haven't got our building approval because now they've come back and they want they've thrown all these um access site access things on us. So we thought we'd taken into account like the the humanities block and the buildings and disabled access and bathrooms and all that type of stuff. They've come back to us now, and I've had multiple arguments with um access specialists about this because now we're trying to now we're coming up with a I thought it was only Melbourne that got those, so you've got them too. Well, we're now we're trying to come up with a um I forgot the word for it, the solution, not the um uh performance solution. Performance solution. But mate, they've we're on a we're four kilometres down dirt right. I know, I know what you're saying. We're in the middle of nowhere. It's crazy. There's no public transport and from our front gate to our first building is 380 metres, yeah, and they want a concrete path and a public access gate at the front gate. It's it's it's it's it's ludicrous. It's it's it's it's it's ridiculous. But you can see why there's a lot of developments that don't go ahead. You can see why there's a lot of improvement that doesn't happen because they make the cost to like that's tens of thousands of dollars to put a path in that no one's ever going to use. Like, I won't be doing it, we're pushing back on it, but but it's not about the pushing back on it, it's the time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:16

Uh you would think that they would sit there and say, look, let's use logic. No, you're right. This is normally this would work if you're six metres from the front, but this is this is ridiculous. Well, let's have a logical discussion, guys. Why can't they talk like that? Yeah, they can't talk like I don't understand where it comes from. And this is how we talk about how I talk to you is how I talk to them. I I I we we get really, you know, and we get our backup, and it's for our clients, you know. Um, I don't know how hard it is to fight battles in your state or every every state, but we we certainly fight them. Um if we but I always say I've got to believe it. I can't fight something if I don't believe it. 100%. That's very hard to do something that you you yourself know is not the right answer. But why are they making all these changes? It's not for the better. It's definitely not for the better. Okay, let's assume it is for the better. Surely one size can't fit all. You you would know that, wouldn't you? I mean, we hope to design our forever home for whatever it's called over the next year or two. And I've already said to Marie, I'd like it to be um disabled proof, uh, have enough amenity should something happen to us. But I think that should be the norm in every home anyway. So, you know, it should be the transition should be seamless. Um not I don't want roadblocks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:30

Yeah. Well, you don't want to have to come back into the house in 10 years, 20 years time either, and have to do major modifications so that you can still enjoy your home.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:38

The thing is, but they they bring all these initiatives in and it's a blanket cover, but really it doesn't solve the problem, it just creates more red, more costs. Who, you know, this is the this is what I think the average mum and dad don't understand. You know, people say, oh, they've hit the builders hard, they've hit the developers hard. But you know it trickles down to you, the consumer, you know that. If you ever read a building permit quote in Melbourne, it says the building surveyor's fee, and then a hundred other taxes lined up underneath it. But I don't think people understand. It's you're paying the government for all these extra levies and that. But it's not that's just building a home, it's across everything we do in life. Insurances. Um we think we're being taxed 25, 35, 45%. It could even be more. Yeah, I'm actually. But is it true? Wait, I don't know if you know the answer, but I keep hearing that the average cost of a home 44% is government fees. Uh I don't know if that's true.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:33

I don't know about home, but land. Like on a new, and look, I'm um I only know what I've been doing. I've got some mates that do big developments and they've complained to me about it. But yeah, I've heard that's a lot on a on a new housing development, land development, up to 48% of it is council and government fees. That's huge. And they want and like you they wonder why the cost of land's um through the roof.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:56

So it's it's I mean, and that's that's why I love working in a city where you can use some of the infrastructure um and and get some savings, but it's still expensive. So it's still it's it's it's not cheap.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:08

It's insane, mate. It's insane. Mate, I've got one more question and then we'll um start to wrap it up. And I think this one's probably a bit controversial for um homeowners, I guess, but you're very big on professionals, architects, designers, builders, um getting being respected more.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:26

Yeah. And and I think my social media has blown up because I've opened up a Pandora's box about the realities of a builder's life, a tradesman's life, or even a designer's life. Is we're we're where we are mums and dads. We go home and we've got kids. And then after being on a building site all day, we've got to attend to our kids' needs, whether it's homework or whatever. We are just family people. And I know when a family, uh, a client even hints, hints at ripping off the builder, I say to them, you know they're a mum and dad. I use those words. What do you mean? They've got kids. What do you mean you're not gonna make final payment? What are you talking about? And so I I I don't think I think a lot of consumers see the builder as this wealthy individual, and developers, they're not. You know, we had one client defer the building of his home because he resented builders driving Mercedes-Benz and he's not. Yeah, and he's had the um he's he hasn't had the last laugh because he's deferred it for so long that that house has doubled in price to build, but that was the perception. What what they want a million dollars to build it so we can sustain their lifestyle? This is an attitude problem. Yeah, I don't know any wealthy builders. When I say like obscene, I know family builders who you know have kids and that. I don't know anyone. Do you? Uh I I know builders, I don't know any builders that have I mean local build I'm I'm I'm a I mean I have a client that went on to build skyscrapers, that's a different level together. I'm talking the average builder is just doing okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:59

Yeah, that's I don't know any builders that have got great wealth from building. I know builders that have have become very wealthy by being smart and using their money to do developments and other things.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:09

You know, I don't know if I I tell people there's money there's no money in architecture, there's no money in building, there's money in developing. Yeah, I I I believe that. Architecture is a service industry. I'll give you one hour and you pay me for my one hour. You're not gonna go far on that scenario. And builders are the same, they're basically swapping hours, so many hours in a day to build the project. Development, you're manufacturing wealth, you're creating wealth, it doesn't rely on time, it's a different feel uh and I knew this lesson, and it's not just builders, by the way. I can tell you how many doctors and lawyers I've had and said, Dom, there's no money in law. What? Even I was guilty of the perception, yeah, what no money in no money in law. I want to do a development, no money being a doctor, Dom. So it's not just us, but but the perception from even me, I just thought you doctors made a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:59

I think with builders and and definitely and developers as well, mate. I I think once people if people could live a day in the life or a week in the life, they would say they're not paid enough.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:10

Yeah, like people And we haven't even touched on the quoting.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:14

Yeah, yeah. They don't get paid enough. Like, even and especially architects, like the amount of time I I knowing what I know now and and helping lots of builders run their businesses better. I'm I some of my architects' designers probably get the shits of me because I'm always saying I'm like, You you need to charge more. Like you you shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:31

You you could even expand your business and teach architects because architects are not taught to run a business. We are not taught to run a business. Um, and also I think in in architecture, there are I remember them saying in arch in when we're at university, there are two paths, people. You've got to choose. And we've got to say, what are the two paths? You can go the business path, you're a business architect, time sheets, time constraints, you've reached a certain level, charge a client, you don't give a rat. That's that path. Or the other path is the artistic path where the design, design, design, and you'll blow all your money, all of it. And I didn't know which one we would go down. We've gone down that one. And I can tell you why. I've sat in bed with my wife. She's nearing the completion of design. I mean, complete, and she'll have a light globe go off. Dom, I think I've worked out a better design for our clients. What do you mean? You know the house we're designed in? Marie, we're up to documentation, we're ready to document. No, no, no, no, no. I've come up with a better design. She gets out of the bed, she starts the draw. That's our pillow talk, right? And then, and then, and then I said, What you are you gonna tell the client? She goes, I have to. It's our obligation. Marie, we've used all our money. The money's gone. We've spent all the money from the client. We've got to use our money now. She goes, I can't live with myself, we're doing it. So she Present it to the client, the client will be ecstatic because we found the magic bullet. That's who we are. How can we ever make money? Yeah, because we use our own, because of the love of the craft. But we've chosen that. There's no big grudge in it. I'm not here having a sook. We will never change because that fee could be double and we would still do it. It doesn't matter. So I know as architects, that's who we are. And we supplement our um income by doing developments. Yeah. And I'll put my hand up. That's how we do it. Otherwise, we would be a slave. And many architects who will be watching this will say, Dom, it's true. And builders too.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:22

Yeah, 100%, mate. Builders too. Mate, let's wrap it up by talking about development. So you're um, I don't know if you you want to put it out there now, but you're working on a course to help people with the okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:31

So um I'm on social media, particularly on Instagram, and and my hashtag is the.invisible.architect. All I'm doing at the moment on that platform is storytelling. From um, we're in the head of a builder, the head of an architect, a buyer, a seller, a mum, a dad, or whatever. And sometimes I'll tell you, tell you some interesting jokes about some clients. So I'm trying to educate people, the the real story behind the scenes. Having done all that, I've discovered that people want to know more about wanting to be a developer or at minimum enter the property market and do a one-off project. So I've set out to uh well initially set out to write all these different courses for all these different types of people, but that's gone out the door now. Now I'm setting up a community of people that pay a membership to come into this community, and in that community on the in the in the early stages are gonna be four courses. And the four courses are the art of property development. Basically, I will teach you how to source property, how to execute it, project management, who are all the team players, how to look at the costs. So at the end, at the end of the day, you produce a building. And I always use the analogy of I'm gonna teach you how to go fishing before we take you on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Once you know how to go fishing, you can go and buy a home. So once I teach you the art of development, please then buy a property. I would prefer you do it in that order as opposed to I bought a property, now can you teach me? Now I can, it just means that some of the um costs that I could have helped you with, it's too late. But it's never too late. So I'm on a mission to teach people that they can do uh uh property development, even if it's only once, if they follow a system. Now it's heavily biased towards doing good design, which is good storytelling. If you choose not to tell a good story, it will be at your detriment because now you're just like everybody else. Yeah, that's your prerogative, right? And I always say I'd rather be part of the market and being the part of the market is going to the fruit market and selling fruit. I want to be part of the market, but I want to be the only apple that's selling that's amongst all the oranges because I'm gonna be able to charge a premium. And that's what I want to teach people to do. How to have a point of differentiation. So in the marketplace, you're first off the cab, off the ranks, you're first. In a bad market, you're first. So at least you're gonna get there. But in a good market, they want they want your product. Yeah, and that means putting together good people. So I'd like people to join this community, not for any other reason, to then to ask themselves the question where can I find like-minded people? I get asked all the time, I live in whoop-whoop, how do I find an architect? Well, I teach you how to find one, so that's what I'm all about, trying to teach the system because I don't think anyone look, there's a lot of educators out there and and they're doing a great job, but they're just teaching you parts, and that's not fair to teach parts. I agree 100%, mate.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:27

And well, from what I see on socials as well, there's also a lot of people out there that have done one, two, maybe three developments, they think they've done all right, and now all of a sudden they're teaching the world how to be developers.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:39

Like it's it's look, and and and and I'm not trying to push my barrow, and it's only because I have worn multiple hats, because I can take the one project and tell you everything that's gone wrong or can go wrong from the builder's point of view, because that's only one side, right? But then there's this side of what the architect goes through for that same project, yeah, what the developer goes through and the trades, and uniquely played. I'm uniquely placed to ask multiple questions. Have you asked the builder this? Have you asked the many, many questions are asked? And the reason I pose a thousand questions in my cause is I've made those mistakes. Yeah, and that's the only way I can take that. You're speaking from experience. Yeah, I'm not speaking from experience. I made the error. I didn't ask the real estate agent if I could have 120 days. Because if I had asked, instead of getting 60, I would have saved myself$19,000 of interest. Shit. Not making that mistake again. These are the things that I pose. Did you know when you hire a real estate agent and you sign an authority and it doesn't sell, you might be stuck with that agent for another three months? How could that be, Dominique? That's what someone asked me the other day. Did you know that on the authority there's a continuing authority? What's that? There's a little box you ticked which says, we didn't sell your property at auction or on the due date. You can't go to another agent for three months. When I told this lady the other day, she goes, What? Did you stop? Did you tick the box? Yeah. Was it 90 days? She goes, Yeah. Well, you could have asked, you could have crossed that out and put 14 days. Now it's there to protect the agent, which is fair enough, because sometimes things take a couple weeks later to sell, and if they don't have an authority, they don't get their commission. But you don't want an asshole agent to hang around for 90 days either, right? The smallest of little details that are taught in my course, which can save money. Now, I have made these mistakes. Of course I have. I paid the double commission once because of that one mistake. I've had it once.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:37

But um But you um like you you've mentioned a lot about storytelling. I I I may not have seen it. I don't know if you've told your story on your socials, but like the story, when you rocked up here today, the story you told me about your background, how you got into it, where you've come from, is just absolute gold nuggets. Like so, like I guess for people that are listening or want to contact Dom about developing stuff, like he's a real deal. Like he's like builder, architect, developer. Like you've done it, you've you uh appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:08

I have done it, but look, fundamentally, if all I if if all you get out of this is a home, I think you I think you've done all right. That's that's pretty much it. You know, can can you get a home? But if you want to be a developer and you're a young kid, even better. Because I'd rather you learn, you know, because there's too many get rich quick schemes, it's not easy, it's not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:28

Yeah, no, it's and look, I'm a I'm a massive believer in um if you if you want to do something, you look up to someone that's done what you want to do. But um, mate, look, I really appreciate you coming. Thanks for having me. I've really enjoyed it, actually. It's been awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:41

This has actually been a really good discussion because it's just been free.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:44

You know, we haven't we haven't rehearsed anything. Mate, I that's how I do the podcast. There's no agenda, we just tell stories. So um I speak up my words on mumble a lot, but you're all good. But um thanks for having me. I really appreciate you coming, and uh, we're definitely gonna be in touch more. But um actually, last question before we wrap it up, mate. What does level up mean to you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:03

Level up is is for me, it means in order to go to the next level. How do you go to the next level? You don't know what you don't know. So the only way to get to the next level is education. So find people, like you said before, that have done what you want to do, number one, have credibility and and probably fundamentally can teach it in a way that you you can absorb it. So level it leveling up means to at least get up to speed to where you want to go.

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:29

Love it, mate. Guys, look, make sure you uh go to the DwaynePears.com website, get on board with your merch so you can help um have an impact with this level up movement to help create a new building industry. Uh, look, go like, subscribe, do all those types of things. Make sure you go and check out Dom on uh Instagram, the Invisible Architect, and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. All right, guys, I want to introduce you to a really exciting new product that I believe is going to play a massive role in Australia building healthier homes. As you all know, I am extremely passionate about healthy homes, and I'm doing a lot of research and putting a lot of time and effort into making sure my construction business is leading the way when it comes to building healthy homes here in Australia. We've teamed up with the guys from Highwood Timber. Highwood Timber are pioneering condensation management with their high flow ventilated LVL baton system. High flow battons give builders a stronger, straighter, and smarter way to create a ventilated cavity behind cladding and underneath roofs without compromising on structural performance. While tackling condensation to improve building health and ease of insulation, highwood battons are built to perform. When it comes to dealing with condensation and ventilation, high flow battons will help you create continuous ventilated cavities behind all your cladding and underneath your roof sheeting. They reduce condensation risk and support healthier, longer lasting buildings. Highwood timber battons are also in alignment with the proposed NCC condensation management requirements as well as passive house ventilation requirements. Being an engineered LVL product, they are stronger, straighter, and more dimensionally stable than a solid material such as pine. This helps resist warping, twisting, and shrinkage, ensuring more consistent installs less prone to splitting than solid timber. Howwood timber battens are precisely manufactured, meaning that your installation will be faster and easier than other products on the market. The part that I like the most about these battons are they are H3 treated for long-term protection against decay and turmoiles. They use a waterborne H3 treatment which reduces reactivity with membranes and adhesives when compared to LOSP. These are the exact battens that you want to be using on your homes and your builds if you are considering building healthier homes or passive homes. Check them out. Highwood Timber products.