r/RealEstateDevelopment

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What's the biggest non-technical obstacle you've encountered between a project being approved internally and actually breaking ground?

I'm not talking about financing, engineering, or permitting.

I'm more interested in the human side.

Have you ever had a project where investors, public officials, tenants, or the community simply didn't "get" the vision at first?

If so, what helped move people from skepticism to support?

Was it better communication, better visuals, public engagement, something else, or was that never really the issue?

I'm trying to understand where projects gain or lose momentum before construction begins, and I'd love to hear real-world experiences.

This isn't ai. This is me trying to figure something out. B.

I’m currently a holder of raw land, most of it, purchased a decade or more ago waiting for growth around the land to arrive.

That growth has occurred, and instead of simply selling the land off, I’m interested in exploring how to find JV or potentially build to suit commercial sites on some of this property.

Does anyone have experience marketing or sourcing these types deals?

Many of the real estate agents I’ve discussed this with, offer nearly 0 help or deal flow.

I know there are people that would be interested, how would you find them? If they are companies (fast food franchises etc) how do you connect with those who want to operate the business but not the real estate?

I’m looking at a small townhome development deal in Utah and would like feedback from people who have done ground-up multifamily / build-to-rent / townhome development.

Project:
- 13 townhome units
- Total building SF: 29,146 SF
- Plan is to build, lease/stabilize, and sell all 13 units together as one investment property
- Not planning to sell individually

Base case assumptions:
- Land cost: $700,000
- Construction cost: $3,300,000
- Land + construction: $4,000,000
- Estimated financing cost: ~$102,000
- Estimated closing cost: ~$27,537
- Estimated all-in cost: ~$4,129,537

Operating / exit assumptions:
- Stabilized NOI: $289,135/year
- Base case exit cap rate: 5.75%
- Estimated bulk sale value: ~$5,028,435
- Estimated project profit: ~$898,898

Rough metrics:
- Construction cost per unit: ~$253,846
- Construction cost per SF: ~$113/SF
- All-in cost per unit: ~$317,657
- Sale value per unit: ~$386,803
- Profit per unit: ~$69,146
- Yield on cost: about 7.0%
- Spread over exit cap: about 1.25%

Capital stack idea:
- I have about $105k to invest personally
- Would raise investor equity for the rest
- Looking at a senior construction loan around 70% LTC
- Potential investor structure: 8% preferred return, then 70/30 split after pref

Questions:

1. Does this seem like a good enough spread for a small ground-up development?
2. Is a 5.75% exit cap realistic for a new 13-unit townhome rental project in Utah?
3. Is ~$113/SF construction cost too aggressive for this type of product?
4. Would you pursue this if the base case profit is around $900k?
5. What major risks am I not thinking about?

My biggest concerns are construction cost overruns, exit cap moving higher, lease-up taking longer than expected, and whether the stabilized NOI is realistic.

Appreciate any feedback from developers, brokers, lenders, or investors.

Hi everyone,

I just turned 27 and I’m looking for some honest career advice from people who work in real estate development, project management or adjacent fields.

I graduated with a finance degree and have spent the past four years working in the alternative finance/merchant cash advance industry. While I know the industry can have a mixed reputation, my role has been heavily focused on operations, portfolio management, client relationships, legal coordination, negotiations, and solving business problems rather than sales.

Over the past few years I’ve helped build operational processes, managed a team, worked directly with executive leadership, coordinated with attorneys on legal matters, handled high balance files (4-10 million) and been responsible for making decisions involving financial risk, restructures, collections, and client relationships.

I’ve developed strong communication, negotiation, and problem-solving skills, but I don’t have direct real estate experience.

I’ve realized that long term I’d much rather build a career in real estate development. I’m fascinated by how projects go from raw land or an existing building to a completed development, and I like the combination of finance, strategy, operations, and tangible results.

I live in the New York City area, so I’d ideally like to stay local.

My questions are:

What is the most realistic path into real estate development with my background?

Would you recommend starting with a developer, lender, acquisitions team, asset management, project management, or another role?

Are there any certifications, skills, or software I should learn to become a stronger candidate?

If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

I’m not expecting to walk into a senior position just because I have professional experience, but I also don’t want to throw away four years of transferable skills if they can be leveraged in the right way. Ideally I don’t want to take a huge pay cut.

I’d really appreciate any advice from people who’ve made a similar transition or who work in the industry.

Thanks!

Struggling to pick a course on my enrollment choices and i saw BS Real Estate Management (PUP Sta. MESA) is BS real estate management a real degree which i can build my career from?

Struggling to pick a course within my enrollment choices and I saw BS Real Estate Management is it a genuine course which I can build a career from?

I have over 9 years working on the builder side for single family and multifamily mid rise on the precon side. I also have toyed with doing my own land deals and started building my own newsletter. I’ve been trying to pivot the last 2 years and figuring if anyone has done it before and how?

We operate a small business in Northern Virginia and we are exploring the possibility of purchasing land and developing the property to build a new facility for the business.

The question is, what is the best order to navigate the process?

Ideally, if we found a suitable property we would add a contingency to allow us to consult with architects and engineers to see if we can fit the building on the property. My requirements for a property are a bit flexible so I can conform the building to fit the property. Should I consult with an architect or engage with a developer now while we are looking for land or is that something that can happen later? We intend to hire experts to manage the project and coordinate with the trades, but it’s that initial contingency phase that I think is critical so we aren’t stuck with a property that we can’t use.

Any advice is appreciated.

I’m a Class A investor in a small Texas LLC real estate development deal and trying to sanity check the situation.

The agreement’s waterfall appears to be: debt/company liabilities first, then any Class B financing-related reimbursement, then Class A capital, then Class B capital, then Class A preferred return, then residual distributions. Developer/manager compensation appears to be triggered only after certain capital/return thresholds are met.

The deal is now distressed, and the GP/manager is forecasting that Class A will be impaired, meaning Class A investors may not even get their initial capital back. The developer (one of the GPs) has said that under the current structure he would receive no compensation and wants to change the structure so he would continue spending time and energy on the project.

My concern is that the original waterfall/fee structure was the agreed risk allocation. If the deal had outperformed, investors could not retroactively change the structure to reduce GP/developer economics. So if the deal underperforms, I don’t think the GP/developer should be able to retroactively change the structure to get paid while Class A is impaired.

I’m not opposed to incentives if they truly improve recovery, but it should not come ahead of, or at the expense of, impaired Class A capital.

Question: Is this a reasonable position? What would you do?

Launching a 16 key boutique property later this year and trying to figure out what hospitality software is necessary at this size versus what gets oversold to new operators. Every vendor makes their tool sound essential and the bill adds up fast if you buy everything that gets recommended.

Specifically trying to figure out what the non-negotiables are at launch versus what can wait until we have the volume to justify it. Anyone gone through this recently for a similarly sized property?

I worked 5.5 years on the LP/preferred-equity side at a boutique PE Real Estate shop. The big platforms have the data, but the price is brutal for a smaller shop and the UX feels like it hasn't been touched since they first built the website. Clunky, slow, and weirdly hard to get a simple market read out of it.

I built a platform from the perspective of an analyst. It's now a real product with over 10 months of real estate data. (https://www.rufusanalytics.com)

What it does today:

• Rental & sales data: ~23,000 buildings and 6.3M units across 605 cities, 1,300 ZIPs, plus ~5.7M for-sale listings. Refreshed weekly, with occupancy, $/SF, and rent broken out by unit type and vintage decade.
• Comp analysis: pick a subject property, pull comparables by ZIP and vintage, and get a side-by-side by unit type (rents, $/SF, occupancy, blended averages). Export to PDF.
• Instant market reports: any ZIP or city, generated in seconds. Rental trends, vintage breakdowns, for-sale price distributions, HUD FMR vs market spread, and HMDA mortgage origination data back to 2019.

Who it's for: boutique Real Estate PE shops, family offices, regional lenders, and brokers. People who need underwriting-grade data without a CoStar-sized budget. I've attached a market report and a comp overview.

I don't want to hard sell. I want to know where this falls short for people doing CRE day to day: what's the one data point or workflow that would make or break it for you? Drop an MSA in the comments and I'll pull a market breakdown from the dataset so you can judge the data quality yourself.

Grateful for any type of feedback, and looking forward to becoming an active member here.

Rosslyn, VA - Comp Overview

Charlotte, NC - Market Report 1

Charlotte, NC - Market Report 2

Background

I graduated with a degree in MIS, and I'm currently working a corporate job at a software company. It pays the bills but it's not where I want to end up. Over the last several months I've been shadowing a builder/broker. He owns his brokerage and builds spec homes on the side, and between watching his projects move and seeing how he structures his time, I got hooked. I want his life more than I want my corporate title.

Where I'm at right now:

I'm partnered with my mom on capital. She's bringing in $150K and I'm bringing $30K, so $180K total to deploy on a first build. She's an equity partner, not a lender, and she's also a licensed agent with MLS access, which has been huge for comps and lot research while I finish my own pre-license coursework (sitting the Georgia exam in the next few months). I'm targeting the Atlanta metro/exurb counties, mainly Cobb, Cherokee, Forsyth, and Bartow, for a single 4-bed spec build, slab foundation, sticking to a 25%-or-less land-to-sale-price ratio and roughly $130/sqft on the build side. I've got a live lot tracker with several candidates ranked and in due diligence right now.

12 month goal:

Close on my first spec home. Realistically that means land acquisition and a lender relationship in the first couple months, permitting and plans after that, a 5 to 6 month build, then list and close. If I hit that, I want project two to be bigger, and eventually move from single-family spec into small luxury builds and boutique multifamily, somewhere in the 8 to 20 unit range.

What I'm looking for:

I want to add more on top of what I'm already doing, shadowing isn't enough on its own anymore. I have free time after work and on weekends and I want to actually be doing something with it, not just watching from the side. What I'm looking for is someone with real experience who's willing to teach me what they know, and honestly I'd work for someone like that in exchange for the knowledge if it came to that. If that's you, or you know someone who fits that, I'd appreciate the connection.