He wrote 600 landowner letters and found a 17-acre Rosemount site

Daniel Rayner, founder of Somerset Developments, says he has sent about 600 letters to landowners in search of subdivision sites and received roughly 30 replies, a response rate of about 5 per cent. One of those replies led to an off-market 17-acre property at 212 Petrie Creek Road, Rosemount, on the Sunshine Coast, according to a realestate.com.au interview with the 34-year-old.

Mr Rayner’s route into development began with a loss. He put $150,000 into a Melbourne townhouse project in 2022, and the developer collapsed about a year later, realestate.com.au reported. He says he then set out to learn the work from the ground up. His first subdivision turned a single property at Bellmere, in the Moreton Bay region, into four lots. He is now working across six subdivision projects, mostly in Moreton Bay and on the Sunshine Coast.

Why it matters

For small developers, the useful part is the sourcing method rather than the loss. Mr Rayner argues the opportunity is rarely a listing marketed as a development site. It is a property whose owner has not yet thought of selling, found by writing to them directly. At a 5 per cent reply rate, a pipeline of six projects implies a large volume of outreach before any site reaches feasibility. That is his account, and the interview does not show how many replies became purchases.

His prep before the first subdivision was extensive, by his own count: more than 100 hours researching sites, conversations with 12 town planners, tenders to 35 civil contractors and feasibility numbers on more than 30 properties.

The numbers

The Rosemount site is the working example. Somerset is preparing a development application for an eight-lot acreage subdivision on the 17 acres. Mr Rayner describes it as a narrow-frontage, steep site with stormwater and overland-flow constraints, and an elevated rear paddock he hopes to unlock through civil engineering. He says he has personally sketched more than 50 layouts to make it work.

“I’ve personally sketched more than 50 different subdivision layouts trying to solve it,” he said.

Those constraints are typical of the acreage land on the Sunshine Coast’s hinterland, where lot yield depends on access, slope and drainage rather than zoning alone. Council is also processing amendments to larger estates in the same region, such as Coral Homes’ 168-lot Palmwoods subdivision.

What’s next

The Rosemount DA is the next test. Neither the application number nor a lodgement date was given in the interview, and we have not yet seen a council record for it, so the eight-lot figure rests on Mr Rayner’s account. Mr Rayner also documents his projects on TikTok under the handle @thelandshnipper.

The arithmetic is worth running before copying it. Six hundred letters and 30 replies means roughly one reply for every 20 owners contacted, and each reply still needs a site assessment, a planner’s view and contractor pricing before an offer is credible. The cost sits in the time spent on feasibility, which is why Mr Rayner’s 100-plus hours of research and 35 contractor tenders on his first project matter as much as the letters themselves. A developer with a single project and thin capital has little room to absorb a site that fails on slope or stormwater after months of work.

Anyone weighing a similar approach should treat the 5 per cent reply rate as one developer’s experience, not a benchmark.