This is a story of how not to become a developer. A chap won the lottery in 2001. He hails from a town of 3,500 people. His brother had just set up a building business. Before setting up a building business he was a t.v repair man. After the chap won he decided to invest in his brothers business and bought a plot of land for a housing development. So they get started with the development in 2002. They build 80 houses. The houses are finally completed over 5 years later in 2007. Before you ask how did it take so long to develop the houses I’ll tell you next. The following reasons.
1: They forgot to register the development with the land registry.
2: They assumed the sewerage development in the town would run by the development at the top when infact it ran by the bottom of the development which delayed the project.
3: The Monday Club. All the workers didn’t work on a Monday and drank in a pub on the Monday and did sing alongs in a certain pub all day Monday.
4. 10-11 was breakfast and 1-2 was dinner.
5. When the weather was great all the workers would go and walk off site to play golf.
6. The developer(t.v repair man) hired a member of the family to be the foreman.
7. The develepor (t.v repair man)was playing golf 7 days a week, and drinking in a certain pub 7 nights a week and was rarely on site.
You get the picture. In the height of the boom they bought an ex-boarding school and the land that came with it to develop. Recently they have applied to build a hotel, an old folks home and an 18 hole golf course. A Hotel with a population in the area of 3500 is absolute madness. The old folks home makes sense as the population is getting older but another golf course. Anyway rumours are circulating that the developer in question owes the banks €18 million. He has told the banks the only way they’ll get their money back is if they give him the money for the new development. Just one question for the pinsters would the banks be that stupid in the current climate to give the developer more money?