There are developers who understand property. And then there are developers who understand markets — the cycles, the signals, the structural forces that move beneath the surface long before they show up in headlines. Craig McDermott belongs firmly in the second category and has for the better part of thirty years.
The founder of CJAM Group is quietly assembling a substantial residential pipeline. More than 1,100 homes. Active projects across Hervey Bay and Toowoomba. A construction methodology that differs from the conventional approaches used by most developers in the region. And a track record of reading where demand is heading before the rest of the market catches up.
What makes Craig McDermott genuinely different is not just what he is building today. It is the depth of experience behind every decision he makes.
The Foundation Was Built Early
Craig McDermott did not arrive in property development through a course, a seminar or a well-timed entry into a rising market. He grew up around construction. His father was a builder, and that upbringing gave him a practical understanding of how projects work from the ground up — literally. He was planning to study architecture before cricket intervened and took him around the world for thirteen years as one of Australia’s most accomplished fast bowlers.
Between 1984 and 1996, Craig represented Australia in 71 Test matches, claiming 291 wickets — a record that placed him among the most prolific pace bowlers the country has ever produced. He was a key figure in Australia’s 1987 Cricket World Cup victory, taking 18 wickets in the tournament, including a five-wicket haul in the semi-final against Pakistan. For the best part of a decade, he was the spearhead of the national attack, the link between the eras of Dennis Lillee and Glenn McGrath.
What most people don’t know is that Craig was building and selling properties while he was still representing Australia internationally. The instinct for development was there long before the opportunity to pursue it full-time arrived. When he retired from Test cricket in 1996, he moved straight into construction and then development without missing a beat.
Within a few years, he was operating at a scale that most developers spend entire careers trying to reach. Seven to eight simultaneous projects across southeast Queensland. A 1,200-lot subdivision in Hervey Bay. Loan facilities ranging from four million to twenty million dollars. Projects spanning Brisbane, Bundaberg and beyond. All of this before the age of forty-five.
That first era gave Craig something that simply cannot be bought or borrowed. Genuine experience at scale across multiple project types, multiple geographies and multiple funding structures. The kind of market knowledge that tells you what actually moves land values, how infrastructure spending translates into population growth, and where demand is real versus where it is speculative. That knowledge only comes from one place — years of having skin in the game.
A Period of Deliberate Observation
What separates great operators from good ones is often not what they do when conditions are favourable. It is what they do when the market asks difficult questions. Craig stepped back from active development for a period before returning to cricket in a coaching capacity, eventually serving as the bowling coach for the Australian national team through to 2016. He also ran his cricket academy across five states for nearly a decade.
All the while, he was watching the property market with the eye of someone who had operated at its highest levels. Seeing which operators rebuilt well and which did not. Identifying where the structural weaknesses in conventional development approaches tend to appear. Building a picture of exactly what a second operation needed to look like — one designed not just for good markets, but for all markets.
When he came back to development in 2019, he came back with that picture fully formed. He started deliberately with 13 lots and built the structure before scaling the volume. Funding diversification. Asset protection. Operational discipline. The sequencing was intentional, and it reflected thirty years of accumulated understanding about how lasting development businesses are actually built.
The Operation Running Today
CJAM Group now carries more than 1,100 residential properties in its pipeline across southeast Queensland, with active projects in Hervey Bay and Toowoomba and a construction model that Craig says sets the company apart from conventional builders in the region.
Every home CJAM Group builds is constructed entirely inside a production facility. Framing, tiling, kitchen, fixtures, taps — every element of the internal finish is completed inside an industrial shed within six to eight weeks. The finished home is then loaded onto a semi-trailer, transported to the site and placed onto a shore footing system. On site, only the garage, driveway and landscaping remain. A single facility can output 20 homes per month and can run two shifts a day when the pipeline demands it.
The thinking behind this approach is pure Craig. Watch the market long enough, and the variables that consistently destroy developer margins become obvious. Weather events. Third-party builder failures. Site complications. Most developers try to manage these risks. Craig decided to remove them entirely.
“We had fully sold subdivisions during COVID, where nine months of rain meant we were rebuilding roads and gutters three times over,” he says. “That kind of event can significantly erode your returns. Our method takes that variable off the table.”
Reading the Market Before It Moves
The location strategy behind CJAM Group’s current pipeline is where Craig’s market reading becomes most visible. He is not positioning projects based on where demand might emerge. He is building where the structural conditions for demand are already in place and where the government has already committed the capital to confirm it.
In Toowoomba, three subdivisions sit within ten minutes of a major hospital development already under construction. According to Craig, land that was settled fifteen months ago at around $260,000 per lot is now selling at significantly higher prices. In Hervey Bay, Craig says Fraser Sands has sold the majority of its first stage before civil works have begun, with early buyers already sitting on meaningful equity gains before receiving keys.
“We are not building on projections,” Craig says. “We are building where people are already moving and where the government has already committed the money. That is as close to a certain market signal as you get in this industry.”
According to the company, CJAM Group has applied for its Australian Financial Services Licence, which would enable it to raise capital directly from sophisticated investors. The business maintains multiple separate funding relationships across the portfolio so that no single event can touch more than one project at a time. Every structural decision in the business reflects a specific and deliberate principle about how a serious development operation should be run.
What Thirty Years Produce
There is a version of expertise that looks impressive on a website. And then there is the kind that shows up in how someone structures a business, reads a market, and makes decisions under pressure. Craig has spent thirty years accumulating the second kind.
From representing Australia on cricket fields around the world, to coaching the national team, to now building a major residential pipeline across southeast Queensland — the throughline is the same. Preparation. Pattern recognition. Execution at the highest level.
Craig did not come back to the property to prove a point. He came back because he saw exactly where the market was going, and he had spent thirty years learning precisely how to build for it.
