Our Business

Acdev is a privately owned Property Development and Consultancy company established in 2004, based in Melbourne, Australia.

We are involved in the following areas of business:

  • Property Development – Buying property, adding value, and either holding or selling the property. This may take many forms, and ranges from purchasing vacant land for subdivision, to the purchase of existing properties which may be refurbished, re-designed or modified to increase the appeal of the property to tenants or other investors.
  • Development Management – Managing or advising on the development process on behalf of clients or Joint Venture partners. In this case, we use our skills and market knowledge to add value on behalf of others. For a variety of reasons, some owners of undeveloped or under developed property do not wish to sell, but rather prefer to hold the property, in which case we manage the development process on their behalf. Depending on the situation this may involve anything from undertaking a leasing strategy, to assisting with the design and town planning process, to ultimately seeing a new building completed.
  • Acquisitions – Targeted acquisition of property for clients. We are constantly searching the market for opportunities and have a wide range of contacts throughout the property industry. We have the skills and resources to find the right property for clients, whether it be for a business to lease, or an investor to add to their property holdings. We are well suited to find and acquire property for clients outside Australia, or where discretion is required for commercial reasons.

Acdev is opportunity driven rather than being industry or location specific, however, we are generally involved with property development with a land or entry price in the range of $500,000 to $5m with an end value in the range of $2m to $12m.

We are actively working in regional areas, and seek opportunities across a wide area of Australia.

We have experience in most Australian metropolitan areas including Adelaide, Darwin, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart.

Acdev was founded and is managed by Tim Schaefer who has an extensive property related professional background including work in sales agency and valuation for Colliers International and Knight Frank and Development Management with Stockland and Bunnings.

Business Philosophy

Acdev is based on a series of important business principles – these being:

  1. Good judgement – We take calculated risk, but always minimise that risk through research and staying in touch with current and predicted trends in property. We always look to property fundamentals such as location, timing, and surrounding built form to guide us on what is "good" property in which to invest our time, money, and resources.
  2. Integrity – We endeavour to be reliable and honour promises made. If we say we are going to do something, we will do it. We always avoid conflicts of interest and other potentially compromising dealings. We reward loyalty wherever possible.
  3. Sustainability – We are in the property business for the long term and we take a long term view when developing and designing property. We aim to minimise the impact of our developments on the environment and incorporate water sensitive design, minimise electricity use, and use landscaping for the benefit of the building and the surrounding environment over the long term.
  4. Quality – We value and reward high quality work, and expect high standards, and in turn we reward our customers with the same high standards. We avoid compromising the quality of work for short term gain.