It was 2010, the coal mining boom was in full swing in Central Queensland. Business was feeling confident, but I was almost broke. I had no job, three children and my beautiful wife to take care of.

A local Queensland Council were offering three lots of industrial land, each approximately 4000M2 at $50 per M2. They required a 10% deposit, with the balance payable within 12 months. For a small extra fee (payable upon settlement) council agreed to subdivide each of the 3 lots into 3 more lots, resulting in 9 lots of approximately 1,400M2.

Now, the problem was I didn’t have $600,000 to settle the lots in the 12 month settlement period, but I did have the 10% deposit.

The short story is I sold all those lots before I had top settle with council, for a cool $1M profit. (Which I later lost, but thats a story for my next article)