The Rejection Log
What I walked away from, and why.
Most of what I assess never reaches a client. These are real blocks from my own screening pipeline, with the reasoning on each one so you can judge the method rather than take my word for it. Three looked right and failed the Threshold for reasons a buyer would only have found after settlement. The fourth came through clean, which is what makes the screen worth running.
Screened July 2026 · Bundaberg region, Queensland · identified to suburb level · every finding drawn from council planning data and specialist risk platforms
The running record
This page is a register rather than a highlight reel. It carries a selection of the blocks I screen, chosen so the reasoning is useful, and it is added to over time. Live briefs and anything a client is currently considering stay off it. The count below is updated at the date shown.
4
Blocks published so far
and published
0
Client acquisitions
completed to date
Last updated 18 August 2026. That last number is zero and it will stay published when it isn’t. As client files complete, I intend to publish outcomes here too, with my original forecast shown next to the result, including where the result lands under it. A record you can check against reality is worth more than one you can’t.
Rejected
The block that was “big enough to subdivide”
Kepnock · 1,735m² · Low density residential
On paper it was the dream: comfortably more than the minimum lot size, in an established suburb with a persistently tight rental market and a decade of steady growth. Split it into two titles, hold or sell, and the numbers looked live.
The screen found what the listing never mentions: a riverine flood overlay and regulated vegetation across the lot. Either alone complicates an approval; together they push the whole play into slow, uncertain and expensive territory. Flood exposure also follows the asset forever, in its insurance premiums and its resale.
The lesson: size is not subdividability. In this region, the large blocks that survived uncut often survived because of what’s on them.
Rejected
The character home on 1,223m²
Bundaberg East · 1,223m² · listed high-$400s · house + land upside
It looked like an affordable entry with an income-producing house and, seemingly, land to spare: the classic retain-and-build profile that fills investor seminars.
The lot sits within a defined riverine flood event. That single line of council mapping changes the assessment category of any future development, the build cost of anything new, the insurability of everything standing, and the pool of future buyers.
The lesson: the cheapest lot to buy is rarely the cheapest to hold, and the difference lives in mapping most buyers never open.
Rejected
The three-lots-in-one opportunity
Norville · 1,277m² · already composed of three historic lots
One holding made up of three historic titles. Configurations like this are worth a hard look, because what can be done with pre-existing lots is a different question to creating new ones. It was an unusual find, and worth opening.
Localised flood mapping runs across the site. It is not the dramatic riverine kind but the overland-flow kind, which still constrains what can be built, where, and at what cost. It never reached a market assessment, because it did not need to.
The lesson: run the tests in the order of what they cost you. The planning question is cheaper to answer than the market question, so it gets asked first, and most blocks are decided long before anyone opens a comparable sale.
Progressed
The one that cleared every gate
Thabeban · 1,657m² · clean on flood, vegetation, bushfire and heritage
Same fortnight, same method. A large block in a suburb that passed the market tests (two-thirds owner-occupied, a persistently tight rental market, near-decade of consistent growth) came through clean across every overlay, unlike the three above. It is big enough to split into two compliant lots, with an existing dwelling to hold income through an approval.
The point: the screen isn’t pessimism. Most blocks fail it, and that is what makes the ones that pass worth acting on.
Four attractive blocks. Three declined before they could become someone’s problem. That is the work.
Considering a block right now? Find out which of these it is, before you commit.
Have it independently assessed
Lot Vetting is $1,000 for a definitive go or no-go with the reasoning.
Entries are drawn from the author’s screening research in July 2026, identified to suburb level; findings reflect council planning-scheme mapping and specialist data platforms at the date of screening and may change. Assessments are general property research relating to specific sites at a point in time, not advice about any property you may be considering, and not a substitute for your own due diligence. © MC Acquisitions.