What are the opening hours?

Monday 7am - 3pm Tuesday 7am - 3am Wednesday 7am - 3am Thursday 7am - 5:30pm Friday 7am - 5:30pm

Strategiq Advisory

Home
Australia
Erina, NSW
Strategiq Advisory

Transformative financial strategies, executed simply.

30/10/2026

If you’re a builder looking to get into development, this buying window deserves your attention.

There are deals getting done at 20% below asking because buyers have the power to negotiate.

Sellers need to move. Valuers are scrutinising the numbers. And sites that didn’t stack at the original asking price are becoming real opportunities.

A low valuation can actually help you negotiate.

It gives you something concrete to take back to the seller. Especially when they need to sell and you’re in a position to move.

Think about a site asking $2 million.

Negotiate it down to $1.6 million and you’ve taken $400,000 straight out of your acquisition cost.

Same site. Same development potential. A very different feaso.

That reduction could be the difference between walking away and having a project worth doing.

On bigger purchases, the negotiation could mean hundreds of thousands—or even a million dollars—off the asking price.

But you’ve got to find the right seller, understand your numbers and be prepared to make the offer.

Then there’s the time you spend planning and building.

If your project takes two years, you’ve secured your purchase price today and given yourself a two-year window for the market to potentially recover.

If values rise during that period, you benefit from that growth while having bought at a price that already made sense.

The deal needs to stack at today’s values. Future growth is the upside.

Too many builders dismiss a site because the advertised price doesn’t work.

Run the feaso. Work backwards. Find the price you CAN pay.

Then negotiate.

That’s how buying power can turn a site you couldn’t make work into your next development.

At the Sites That Stack Workshop on 13 November, we’ll work through finding opportunities, negotiating the purchase and running a simple feaso so you can build your own development plan.

DM us “SITES” for the details. 👊

27/10/2026

He never hated building. He hated the process.

For James, it was the client side that wore him down. Chasing payments. Waiting on approvals. Answering to someone else’s timeline.

Developing changed all of that. He calls it “the purest way to be a builder,” and here’s why.

Nobody else to blame.
When you’re the developer, there’s no client holding things up. If the job’s delayed, it’s on you. Full control means full accountability.

Getting paid is up to you.
Want your progress payment? Get your paperwork in order and book the QS. Your cash flow moves as fast as you’re organised.

No one’s watching. Everything’s riding on it.
No client checking in, no one cracking the whip. But every bit of effort you put in shows up directly in what you make at the end.

The clock is always ticking.
James pays $40,000 to $50,000 a month in interest, and he says it’s the best motivator he’s ever had. There’s no room to let a project drift.

That’s the trade. More control, more responsibility and far more reward. For builders who are ready for it, it changes everything.

Understanding how that interest, cash flow and funding fit together before you start is exactly what Builder to Developer teaches. Ryan and Lisa built the course to walk builders through it step by step, and as you go, you build your own Development Implementation Plan around your numbers.

Hear James’s full story in the latest episode, and if you want to learn the process yourself, the course is in the link in bio.

26/10/2026

The valuer said $12.5 to $13 million. It sold for over $17 million. Here’s what James Watkin knew that the numbers didn’t show.

1. Know your area.
James grew up in Dural, and he owns the property next door. He knows the streets, the people and what they value. In an area where families stay put for decades, there are hardly any comparable sales to lean on. Local knowledge filled the gap.

2. Know your block.
Flat. Five acres. One of the best streets in Dural. North-facing at the back. In James’s words, the site “did a lot of the heavy lifting.” The right block does half the work before you’ve laid a slab.

3. Know your buyer.
The safer play was a cheaper home under $10 million. James deliberately avoided it, because that end of the market is struggling right now. Instead he built for buyers above $15 million, people buying a home to live in and enjoy, who are far less rattled by interest rates or market swings.

4. Wrap it all into your feasibility.
The valuation of $12.5 to $13 million was enough to get the project funded, and James expected to beat it. Because his feasibility stacked up at the conservative number, the upside was a bonus rather than a gamble.

That’s the difference between a development that works and one that just hopes.

Area. Block. Buyer. Feasibility. Get those four right and the numbers start working for you. That sequence sits at the heart of Builder to Developer, the course Ryan and Lisa built to teach builders exactly this. As you work through it, you apply each step to your own situation and build your own Development Implementation Plan.

Hear James’s full story in the episode, and if you want to learn the process yourself, the course is in the link in bio.

25/10/2026

Half-built. Sold for over $17 million. A record for the entire Hills District 🔥

This is James Watkin of Jakin, one of our biggest and most successful builder-developers, and this episode with Ryan and Lisa is something special.

James didn’t wait for the house to be finished. He didn’t need to. Villa Pietro sold at around the halfway mark for more than $17 million, plus landscaping, the highest price the Hills District has ever seen.

But the number isn’t what stuck with us. It was how James talks about developing.

For years he built for clients. Their deadlines, their changes, their payment delays. Now he builds for himself, and he says it beats client work on every level. Emotionally. Peace of mind. And financially, he’s earning three times what he made before.

He calls it “the purest way to be a builder.”

Because when you’re the developer, there’s no one else to blame. If a payment’s late, it’s your paperwork. If something’s delayed, it’s your system. Full control. Full responsibility. Full reward.

That’s exactly why Ryan and Lisa built Builder to Developer.

James’s story isn’t luck. It’s a set of principles: pay your building business properly, run honest feasibility, fund the deal the smart way, and pick the right site for the right buyer. Our course teaches every one of them, in order. As you work through it, you build your own Development Implementation Plan from your own numbers.

You don’t need a $17 million project to start. You need the right blueprint.

The full episode is out now, and the course is waiting when you’re ready. Both are in the link in bio.

21/10/2026

If your building business can’t run without you, you’ve built yourself a bloody demanding job.

And taking on more projects can make that job even harder.

More calls. More decisions. More people waiting for you to tell them what to do.

Getting off the tools starts with getting clear on who owns what.

Supervisor. Project manager. Admin. You.

What is each person responsible for? What decisions can they make? What still needs to come back to you?

Then, as the business grows, revisit it.

The team structure that handled three projects might struggle with six. Roles need adjusting. Work needs redistributing. Sometimes you need another person.

Otherwise, you become the person filling every gap again.

Working ON the business means making time to build that structure, so you can step away from the day-to-day.

Because you can build award-winning homes and still have no time to enjoy your own life.

Profit matters. So does being able to take a holiday, spend time with your kids and switch your phone off.

Build a business that gives you those choices. 👊

20/10/2026

Your profit decides how much you can borrow, how many jobs you can take on, and whether you ever get to develop.

Not your revenue. Your profit.

Most builders think about their financials once a year, at tax time. But those numbers are being read by more people than you think.

Here’s how it actually works.

✅ Profit comes first. A business that consistently makes real profit looks strong on paper. One that’s been squeezed to minimise tax doesn’t.

✅ Profit drives your lending. Banks and lenders look at what your business earns. Stronger profit means more borrowing capacity for equipment, cash flow and your own developments.

✅ Profit lifts your home warranty limits. Your insurer reads the same financials. Better numbers mean a better rating and a higher limit, which means more jobs and bigger projects.

✅ Bigger limits let you scale. More capacity to build, more capacity to borrow, and the freedom to start developing.

But here’s the catch Tom talks about. It’s a constant balancing act, and the goalposts keep moving. Push too hard on tax and everything above takes a hit. Restructure your financials the wrong way and it can come back to bite you years later.

That’s why it matters who’s preparing and reviewing your financials before they go to a lender or insurer. The right advisers make sure the numbers you hand over tell the strongest true story of your business, and that they line up with where you’re planning to grow next.

The number that decides how big your building business can grow isn’t revenue. It’s profit.

Hear Tom’s full story with Ryan and Lisa. Link in bio.

19/10/2026

You can afford to build it in cash… and still make your next development harder.

That was the lesson from a project at Long Jetty.

The advice was to get the funding set up properly.

Instead, the builder paid for the entire project in cash.

The house got built. But then came the headaches.

Insurance. Lending. Funding the next purchase.

Getting the house finished was only part of the equation. How they funded it affected what they could do afterwards.

Eventually, they followed the advice they’d originally ignored.

After a few strong years in business, buying property and securing funding became much easier.

I see this so often with builders moving into development.

You’re focused on getting the project done. But the decisions you make today also need to support the next deal.

Before you pour your cash into a development, understand what that decision means for your building business—and your ability to go again.

18/10/2026

Saving tax means very little if you’re starving your building business of profit and cash.

I see builders do this all the time.

They build their own home or development, push the costs through the building business and pay themselves last… if at all.

The thinking?

“It’s all my money anyway. Why pay a margin and pay tax on it?”

But then they want to borrow for the next site.
Increase their HBCF eligibility.
Grow the building business.

And the numbers don’t support it.

The business has carried the costs, missed out on the margin and funded the project from cash it needed to operate.

You’ve made the business look weaker to save some tax.

Your building business needs to be treated like a builder on your development.

Proper funding.
Proper pricing.
A margin.
And payment for the work it does.

Yes, that means your development has to pay your building company.

But zoom out. You own both. That payment puts cash and profit into the business doing the work.

And a stronger building business can put you in a better position for funding, HBCF and the next opportunity.

The goal is to build a profitable building business AND profitable developments.

Don’t sacrifice the engine that makes the whole thing possible.

16/10/2026

Can you name your margin and your net profit right now? Most builders can’t.

Tom couldn’t either. When Covid landed, he learned the hard way that revenue doesn’t protect you. Knowing your numbers does.

Markup. Margin. Net profit. Three simple numbers, and most builders never think they need them.

Until the blows start landing, one after another.

In Tom’s words, running a business on revenue alone can get “very scary.” Money comes in, money goes out, and you’ve got no idea where you actually stand until it’s too late.

Tom’s take is honest. When it goes wrong, you own it. And if it sends you backwards, you go back to square one and rebuild properly.

The builders who survive the tough years aren’t the busiest. They’re the ones who know their numbers before the hits come.

Hear Tom’s full story with Ryan and Lisa. Link in bio.

13/10/2026

Some clients send a thank-you email. Mitch and Hannah from Nexlevel Constructions made a whole video!

We’re honestly a bit lost for words.

Mitch and Hannah, thank you. Not just for the kind words, but for the time, effort and heart you put into making this for us. Working alongside you both has been one of the real joys of what we do, and watching your business grow has been even better.

This is exactly why StrategIQ was built, and why it stands for all it does today.

Most businesses have an accountant who does their tax once a year. Then there’s a bookkeeper somewhere, a broker somewhere else, and nobody connecting the dots. Meanwhile the owner is left running a business that’s busy but not as profitable as it should be.

We do it differently. We sit beside our business owners across their whole journey:

- Getting the business running properly, with the right systems, processes and reporting
- Lifting profit by knowing your numbers, pricing with real margin and keeping more of what you earn
- Tax, structuring and protecting what you’ve built
- Making the move from builder to builder-developer, with funding, feasibility and the right squad in your corner
- And everything in between

One team that understands the full picture and working towards the life you actually want.

Mitch and Hannah, we’re so proud of you, and so grateful you trust us to be part of the ride.

If you’re a business owner wondering what your business could look like with the right people behind it, send us a message. We’d love to chat.

Address

Shop 5, Erina Plaza, 210 Central Coast Highway
Erina, NSW
2250

Opening Hours

Monday	7am - 3pm
Tuesday	7am - 3am
Wednesday	7am - 3am
Thursday	7am - 5:30pm
Friday	7am - 5:30pm

Website

http://strategiqadvisory.com.au/, https://linktr.ee/strategiqadvisory2, http://www.buildertodeveloper.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Strategiq Advisory posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.