Development a Team Sport: GRAYA

Over the past 10 years GRAYA has refined its builder-developer model to capture significant success in the luxury residential market in south-east Queensland. 

But it didn’t happen overnight, according to co-founders Rob and Andrew Gray. 

“It takes a team to pull off these developments,” Andrew Gray says. 

“It doesn’t matter how good you are at being a developer or builder, there’s 10, 20, even 30 consultants you need to rely on. You need to work with the best of the best and surround yourself with other successful companies if you want to have a successful project.”

His brother Rob Gray describes the development game as a “team sport”. 

“You can be a superhero company in your own right, but if you don’t have really skilled consultants around you, you can have all these roadblocks, not just speed bumps, but roadblocks,” co-founder Rob Gray says.

Some of those roadblocks included finding the right developer finance model to help GRAYA upscale its development pipeline. 

The Gray brothers have been collaborating with development finance advisory group STAC Capital to help source the right funding for their projects and it has been a highly successful partnership. 

“Interest rates are the first thing that developers look at but it’s changed so much,” STAC Capital’s Dale Sparke says. 

“Maybe not every project is for every funder. If it doesn’t align with how much debt or equity is needed for a project, then maybe we need to go to a wider audience for that project. 

“We want to make sure that the developers out there are making the right decisions with the right facts.”

Sparke says while bigger developers have traditionally relied on bank lending there is a lot more diversity in what is on the table for debt and equity financing now. 

“There are so many options and every option has different merits in terms of what our clients are trying to achieve,” Sparke says. 

And it is something that GRAYA has also worked through alongside STAC Capital. 

“These days, there’s so many different options, family offices, still the major banks, obviously, but that’s why I like to work with you guys, because you have contacts everywhere and you come to us [with options],” Andrew Gray says.

“It’s not just one or two options, you come to us with up to 10 options and talk us through every option, what are the pros, what are the cons, and then we can make an educated decision on which direction we go for our projects.”

To watch all three episodes, visit The Urban Developer YouTube channel.