Property Podcast
How Business Success can Equal Personal Success With Steve Barlow
January 7, 2021
We're back with general manager of Clearstate, Steve Barlow. When he made the move to the smaller business Clearstate, his passion for helping people buy and build their dream homes was reignited. Although he is more focussed on the business at present, he still has big plans for his own property portfolio and is not in any rush.
In this episode of Property Investory we will learn exactly how Barlow deals in fragmented land parcels, finding the best deals for all parties involved. You’ll have the opportunity to hear how he has seen the industry change over the last 15 years firsthand and why right now is a great time to buy and build new houses!

Timestamps:

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Transcript:
Steve Barlow:
(06:16): There are currently stamp duty exemptions, there are grants that they can get access to. That is an advantage to buying a new product. The other advantage is that you can build the house that you want, you can customise a house, you can choose the materials and colours that suit your taste and needs, you have complete control over that. 

**INTRO MUSIC**

Tyrone Shum: 
This is Property Investory where we talk to successful property investors to find out more about their stories, mindset and strategies.

I’m Tyrone Shum and in this episode, we’re continuing our discussion with property investor and manager of Clearstate, Steve Barlow. Having started his career at Mirvac and Stockland, Barlow shares what it’s like to work for a smaller developer, how the projects differ and what he’s looking forward to in the future, both personally and professionally.

**END INTRO MUSIC**

**START BACKGROUND MUSIC**

Tyrone Shum:  
At Clearstate, Barlow is deeply involved in the process from the early stages of acquisition right through to when customers are purchasing land. He describes this process as being somewhat dependent on outside factors but ensures a level of predictability within their team’s strategy.

Steve Barlow:
(00:41): In April of early last year, we committed to a 50 lot subdivision, which was acquired from three separate owners that own contiguous parcels. So if you cast your mind back to April, that was [during] peak COVID uncertainty. For that particular investment, we believed that the government would implement stimulus to the property industry, given how important it is to the overall economy's health. 

(01:18): We backed that if you've got good projects and good affordable products in good locations, ultimately we'll be able to develop them. Fortunately, that's turned out really well, so from the point where we committed to that project back in April, we've almost got our DA, which is really surprising.

Tyrone: 
Wow that’s fast.

Steve Barlow:
It was very fast. We typically forecast a 12 month period for our DA's, so we're going to get that in circa six, which is fantastic and we've sold the project out. 

(01:49): With the benefit of hindsight, if you had said to me, we'd almost have our DA and we'd have sold the project within six months of acquisition, I would have laughed at you. So that's been really good. But in terms of the end to end process, once we've identified the site and we've done the deal with the vendor, we then go through a really detailed and strenuous due diligence process.

(02:13): We spend a lot of time and money at the front end really understanding a project before we formally commit to it and spend money. We [seek to] understand the ground conditions and any contamination that might exist, we understand the planning controls that we need to adhere to and we do a lot of market research to understand that the product we're going to deliver is market-facing and what we can sell it for. 

(02:37): We do a really detailed feasibility, that typically takes us eight weeks to complete. Once we've done that due diligence, we formally commit to the project contractually and then the next day, we're into preparing the DA package, preparing our go to market strategy and getting ready to deliver the project. We'll typically have a 12 month option period, once we've committed to the project.

(03:04): This involves getting the DA, getting pre sales, getting project debts as we fund some of our projects via project debt, from a third party. Then we settle on the land and once we've done that we're straight into construction. So we have all of that lined up ready to go, for example, we settle on Monday, we start construction on Tuesday and then from construction through to creation of the title, that mum and dad ultimately settled on, will take another 9–12 months. At the end of that, we get all the settlement proceeds in and that's ultimately where we make our cash profit.

Seeing the Bigger Picture

Tyrone Shum:
(03:38): So just to explain to the audience what you're referring to when you say construction, we're not talking about building houses but it's basically laying the foundation, so all the sewage, the plumbing and all the electrical works. So basically you have all the roads and all the stuff there, just no houses on [that land yet].

Steve Barlow:  
(03:54): That's right. Picture suburbia, if you like, just minus the houses. We get the suburb to that point and then after that, the customer can come along and build the house that they ultimately want to live in. 

Tyrone Shum:  
(04:09): Yeah and this is the challenge that I think any land developer faces, to actually sell [the] land is hard because the customer has to sort of picture it without actually seeing it. Most people who buy a brand new house can actually go in, feel it out and so forth. Is there a different way that you guys would market and promote the land in order for the home buyer to be more inclined to purchase that land? 

(04:09): For me, I'm like, how do I see what this house will look like on this land and in this suburb and who's going to be around me? If I've got 50 odd lots out there that are empty, then I'm imagining, 'What's it gonna look like when there's 50 other houses being built exactly the same?' How do you market it in a way where it's, you know, selling that dream.

Steve Barlow:  
(04:55): It's interesting. I think that was probably more of a problem 10 years ago than what it is today. What we find nowadays is that customers are so educated when they come and talk to us. Very few customers have very little understanding of what they're potentially going to acquire. Whether it be through family and friend experience,  through market research or internet research.

(05:20): Whether it be going to display villages and competing projects, where you can actually walk around a house and touch and feel it and see what a typical lot size will look like. There's more opportunity for people to understand the process and what they're buying. One of the really important things is to try and get people on site, you might not be able to see the lot that you're actually buying because it isn't under construction, or it's mid construction, but you can see the typical location of where your lot is. Selling off the plan from a land perspective is easier than it was once before.

Government Incentive

Tyrone Shum: 
Although Clearstate already sells an affordable product that checks a lot of boxes for their customers – especially first home buyers – Barlow also informs that there is currently a lot of government incentive for customers to build new. 

Steve Barlow:
(06:16): There are currently stamp duty exemptions, there are grants that they can get access to. That is an advantage to buying a new product. The other advantage is that you can build the house that you want, you can customise a house, you can choose the materials and colours that suit your taste and needs, you have complete control over that. 

(06:50): The ability to be able to personalise your family home is a really appealing one, so that's probably the other reason why it makes sense. In some examples, like I touched on earlier, our projects are located near new infrastructure, one in the North West rail link, in the northwest of Sydney. So the ability to to build your new home to your taste, within walking distance to that infrastructure is pretty appealing.

Tyrone Shum:  
(07:16): Yeah, absolutely. That factor is really important because I think nowadays, people rely very heavily on that infrastructure, especially to get them closer towards the CBD if they need to access that to get wherever they need to go. It's made a huge improvement, I mean, I've been on the metro many times and it's so fast now to get from point A to point B. 

(07:34): It's actually faster to hop on the metro to go from, say, Kellyville to Macquarie Park than to drive. I don't even know why I even drive when it takes me an hour to drive to Macquaire and it only takes me 20 minutes on the metro.

Steve Barlow:  
(07:45): Yeah, the other property advantage that particularly first time buyers get out of buying new is, because they're buying off the plan and they don't have to settle because the lot hasn't been created for circa 12 months, they've got another 12 months worth of saving time. So you know, for first time buyers particularly, that 12 months worth of the ability to save is really good when you ultimately get to the point where you need to take out your mortgage, you've got more of a deposit to tip into that transaction. So that timeframe for a lot of our customers is really appealing.

Maximising Potential of Fragmented Land Subdivisions

Tyrone Shum:  
Often in the fragmented land subdivision space, one neighbour is reliant on another to maximise their value. So if they join their blocks together they receive a higher price. This was the case with one of Barlow’s acquisitions which involved three vendors.

Steve Barlow:
(08:48): That particular example is on a street in Box Hill called Box Road where we've done some projects before. So we knew the area really well, we like the location from a market perspective, we knew the planning controls really well and that came about just via our network. So I suppose we've got a network that we reach out to when we're looking to acquire. An agent friend of ours knew one of these vendors and I suppose that got the initial conversation started. 

(09:21): From there, the three vendors realised that they were better selling together. Their land was more valuable because it was more efficient to develop it as one parcel as opposed to three individual projects. That allowed the conversation to become a lot easier because there was a realisation from a vendor perspective that they were going to maximise their outcome by partnering together. 

Tyrone Shum:
(10:03): So I'm also wondering, in terms of those three lots, how large was that block of land when you actually merged them together?

Steve Barlow:  
(10:11): It was six and a half acres.

Tyrone Shum:  
(10:15): That's quite a lot. Once you actually subdivide how much was each block in terms of sizing wise, once you'd actually been able to subdivide into, say 50 lots?

Steve Barlow:  
(10:26): An average of about 375 square metres.

Tyrone Shum:  
(10:29): Well that's reasonable still, I mean close to that 400 mark. That then means that people will be able to develop or build a house, like a double storey house quite easily, then will still have a little bit of backyard space too.

Steve Barlow:
(10:40): That's write. So again, they've got their choice of builder, they've got the choice of design, they've got a lot of flexibility to come in and make it their own. So that appeals to a lot of people and they go away and do that.

Tyrone Shum:  
(10:53): So just curious as well, how much were those books selling for on average, in this current market?

Steve Barlow:  
(11:00): We started from $475,000 and for the bigger lots, we ranged up to near on $600,000.

Tyrone Shum:  
(11:08): That's actually still very affordable when you think about it because by the time you build a house and stuff like that, it would be close to buying a brand new house in the area. Around the Box Hill and Kellyville area, the prices [are] up to the mill Mark. So that really does make it very enticing to be able to build them brand new, compared to actually going out and buying an existing one that doesn't have your taste and everything in it.

Importance of Infrastructure

Steve Barlow:
(11:33): In that particular project, also being within three kilometres of the metro. So not a significant distance, which again, was appealing to customers.

Tyrone Shum:  
(11:42): Now it makes sense. It's [also] a no brainer as to why those lots sold out so fast.

Steve Barlow:  
(11:47): The government stimulus certainly helped. The government's done a great job, from a property industry perspective, managing the COVID situation.

Tyrone Shum:   
When it comes to funding a project like this, Barlow explains that it’s not as complicated as it seems. It’s not a one-point acquisition of funds but rather happens over a period of time until construction. Barlow explains their usual process to attaining these funds.

Steve Barlow:  
(12:23): That project hasn't gone to construction yet, so we'll typically take out the bank finance at the point of construction. Up until that point, so say, the first 12 months of the project's life cycle, we fund out of equity and then once we've got the pre sales in place, once we've got a DA and a construction contract with a civil contractor, that's the point where we go and take out bank debt. 

(12:46): At the moment there are a fair amount of players in that space, particularly non bank lenders who are looking for well placed projects that are pre sold, with good returns that they can go and put their money into. Our recent experience in the debt market has been really positive.

Tyrone Shum:
(13:05): Is that related to the financier that you mentioned is in New York, is that person helping fund these types of projects? 

Steve Barlow:  
(13:14): That's part of our structure, if you like.

Tyrone Shum:
(13:17): Okay, excellent. It's really fascinating, because there's so much that's involved. Obviously, with your experience having worked at Mirvac and Stockland, you can bring all this across to better manage these projects. One thing I think most of us will probably be thinking about is how do you make sure that you get these projects delivered on time? 

(13:32): You've obviously delivered something like this much sooner than expected, as you said, but how do you ensure that projects like this are delivered on time? There are so many parts of the wheel and there are so many external factors like COVID, for example, that could have impacted this dramatically.

Following the Program

Steve Barlow:
(13:47): Due diligence is really crucial, so we need to have a really thorough understanding of the moving parts of your program, to make sure you’ve got enough time to deliver on those moving parts. A lot of it will come back to our ultimate strategy, whereby we buy land that's already zoned, that's very, very certain from a planning perspective and then when we're looking at the products we're going to deliver, we try and get 100% compliance. 

(14:14): So because we're not trying to push the boundaries with council, you limit the risk of your program, from a DA perspective, not being achieved. It's about having a really, really detailed and understood program at the point of acquisition. It doesn't necessarily mitigate all risk, but it certainly gives you a good chance of delivering on your project. Again, everyone's got a war story as it relates to projects that haven't gone to program. But it really comes down to the buying and how well you analyse the moving pieces of your program and forecast accordingly.

Tyrone Shum:
(14:54): I think we've talked about the council DA approvals and so forth, that you've gone through. Now, say for example, a customer comes and purchases this block of land and they want to build their dream house on it, they will need to submit a DA approval to get that done as well. But, do the lands also fit for CDC? Like complying development? 

Steve Barlow:
(15:14): Yeah, so without being completely accurate, I'd suggest 95% of our product, if not higher, is CDC applicable. A customer can get a CDC approval on most of our projects within 10 days.

**ADVERTISEMENT** 

Tyrone Shum:
Coming up after the break, we hear more about where Barlow see’s Clearstate moving in the future.

Steve Barlow:
(17:12): I'd probably like to see Clearstate grow into a bigger business and start to branch out into bigger projects. Like we touched on earlier, it'd be good maybe in 5–10 years time to be building some houses.

Tyrone Shum:
We hear about someone from Barlow’s past who had a big impact on his personal development.

Steve Barlow:
(18:34): I ended up spending some one on one time with him and it was really quite powerful for him to analyse me and give me some feedback on what he was seeing and what I was telling him. 

Tyrone Shum:
What personal goals he would like to achieve in the near future...

Steve Barlow:
(25:48): I don't have a self managed super fund, that's probably one thing that I'm going to do in the next year or so, just to be able to go and be a bit more flexible with the super money that I've got. 

Tyrone Shum:
And that’s next. I’m Tyrone Shum and you’re listening to Property Investory.

---> Insert Money Partner midroll: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NMacx0rmmhvqUDB-ecQe3zuqzIFZoBWO/view?usp=sharing

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Not a Normal Office job

Tyrone Shum: 
Barlow is lucky to be involved in every part of the transaction, from acquisition to the owners moving in. His job is very diverse and he never spends his days doing the same thing, which keeps him on his toes.

Steve Barlow:  
(16:04): I don't sit and look at a spreadsheet all day, sometimes I can get out on site and kick the dirt. I do look at spreadsheets, I analyse markets, I deal with people, I negotiate with councils. It's so diverse that every day I come into the office or start work, it's going to be different to yesterday. 

(16:27): That keeps me interested. But the tangible nature of what we do is probably the biggest thing. The ability to take a project from the initial conversation with a vendor and doing a deal, through the DA process, into construction and ultimately, seeing homeowners in their house creating their lives is a really tangible thing. So that's pretty exciting.

Tyrone Shum:  
Having exposure to a number of executives early on in his career, particularly at Stockland, gave Barlow the chance to learn some important skills that he would take with him throughout his development career.

Steve Barlow:
(18:05): I wouldn't say I had any mentors, specifically, I probably just took little bits from everybody that I dealt with, whether it be the way they do things really well, or maybe some of the things they weren't so good at and how I think they could have done a better job.

(18:34): I was very fortunate that lots of people gave me some really good guidance along the way. One of the best things I did was getting exposure to a business coach or a corporate coach, if you like, through some training that I did at Stockland. I ended up spending some one on one time with him and it was really quite powerful for him to analyse me and give me some feedback on what he was seeing and what I was telling him. From a personal development standpoint, that was one of the most important things I've done.

Tyrone Shum:
(19:12): Can you share an example of one of those experiences?

Steve Barlow:  
(19:20): Yeah, he sort of drilled into me that I could sometimes be a little bit pessimistic, particularly around my own personal performance, not so much about the business. He got me to look at the good things that I did, not just the negative things that I did. For a period of time every day, he would get me to write down the good things out of my day and conversely, the not so good things out of my day. 

(19:49): What that taught me was that when I was really realistic about what I was writing down on the page, I had more good things to say than I had bad things, from a personal performance and how to analyse that perspective. So it allowed me to become more balanced and more confident in what I was doing. So he was great at giving me a structure to analyse myself and ultimately gain confidence in my work.

Personal Affirmations

Tyrone Shum:
Fantastic. That's what I love to hear because I think a lot of investors also get inspired to do that. We do look at things realistically, but at the same time, it can be [dangerous] to always think about what the worst case is. On one hand you need to factor those things in but [on the other hand] you've also got to look at the positives. Are you still using those skills in your current life and in what you've been doing?

Steve Barlow:  
(20:40): I'm not doing it every day, but when I find that I'm becoming a little bit more pessimistic, or I'm focusing on the negative, then I'll do it maybe for a week just to reset myself. So I'll probably end up doing it once every quarter on average. I’ve found that it's a really good structure to keep me balanced.

Tyrone Shum:  
(21:02): Excellent. I've been in the corporate environment for many, many years as well and there are personal performance plans. Is that what you guys have set up to help in being accountable in your role?

Steve Barlow:  
(21:17): We're probably fortunate that we're small enough that we get interaction day to day across the business. There's only eight or nine of us so we can sort of do it live, if you like. One of the things that I think we've found that's worked well for us, is we now spend more time doing than planning. Whilst we do an element of planning, we're finding we're more successful just by getting in and doing, which has probably been a lesson that as a business, we've been learning over the last couple of years. But at the moment, it seems to be working really well.

Tyrone Shum:  
(21:50): Yeah, it sounds like it's a great, agile environment where you're moving across much faster. Understandably the Mirvac's and the Stockland’s have got thousands and thousands of employees there, so there's a lot of corporate tape in getting up to the top to get approvals and so forth. So being able to move much faster, I think you've delivered outcomes much quicker too. 

(22:10): As the company grows, how do you actually manoeuvre through that? In your position as a general manager, how do you see the company building to [to the point where it would] potentially have lots and lots of employees as well?

Steve Barlow:  
(22:23): Ultimately, we'll have to become more structured in the way that manages those HR aspects. I'm fortunate that I've got a team of self starters. They want to be the best they can be and they want the business to be the best that it can be, so I'm fortunate in the people that I've got around me. As we grow, if we can try and find alike people, then that whole process becomes easier. But at the moment, we give people a lot of autonomy to do their job and if you've got the right people, I find that works really well.

Keeping Your Mind Fresh

Tyrone Shum:  
Barlow enjoys reading materials that keep his mind fresh and allows him to always stay learning. He doesn’t necessarily read property books, but books in that general vicinity.

Steve Barlow:  
(23:05): A book that I'm still fascinated by and still read every so often is The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. It's one of those books where I find myself having to read the page twice to understand what he's talking about. It's a very complex book on the history of money, bond markets, share markets and the like.

Tyrone Shum:  
(23:44): Wow. That's the first time I've heard of that book. Is it a book that we can easily find online and just download it or purchase it?

Steve Barlow:  
(23:52): He's done a DVD series as well which is pretty good. But I find with this book, you can take your time to really understand the concepts that he's putting forward and what the history of money looks like. So I found it really fascinating. 

Tyrone Shum:
There are a number of things that Barlow would like to have begun at a younger age – both from a personal perspective and a career perspective.

Steve Barlow:  
(24:32): I would have said invest earlier, whether that's property investment or investing on the share market, be more investment focused with your personal money. I think that's probably the advice I'd give and secondly, from a career perspective, probably what I touched on earlier, be more positive and confident. Those are probably the two things that I'd say. Enjoying the journey is probably the third thing, obviously you've got to have fun as you do anything. 

Become Successful as a Team

Tyrone Shum: 
Although Barlow foresees his own property portfolio growth in the future, at present he is focused on growing Clearstate and honing his craft there. He believes in the motto; business success equals personal success.

Steve Barlow:  
(25:24): I probably don't think a lot about myself in a five year term, to be honest, I think about business in a five year term, but I suppose my logic or approach is that if the business does well, then everybody in the business will do well. That then affords me, I suppose more personal opportunities from an investing standpoint. 

(25:48): I don't have a self managed super fund, that's probably one thing that I'm going to do in the next year or so, just to be able to go and be a bit more flexible with the super money that I've got. But outside of that, for me, it comes down to business success equals personal success. So that's where I focus most of my energies.

Tyrone Shum  
(26:05)  Finally Steve, yes you've achieved great things, a lot in your career within property development and in all of these large, great companies, and within Clearstate. How much of your success do you think has been due to your intelligence, your skill and hard work? Conversely, how much of it do you think has been because of luck?

Steve Barlow:  
(26:33): In our game, particularly in the property space, we are a victim of the market. You can only influence the market so much, you can't control it. So it's probably a little bit of both. I'd like to think it's more skill than luck, but it's probably a bit of both. 

**OUTRO**

Tyrone Shum:
Thank you to Steve Barlow, our guest on this episode of Property Investory.

Just head over to propertyinvestory.com/guide and download it today.