Factors hindering development

[m.evt]

Good evening,

I'm a bit of a young one and am in not in any position to develop anything any time soon, but I was wondering what kinds of things usually hinder a development of say a townhouses?

What kinds of things could one do in one's power in order to keep the development time of say a couple townhouses as low as possible while keeping costs as low as possible? Barring cutting corners and doing anything sus.

Are there any annual cycles that would influence the best time to develop a block of land? For instance, if weather were a factor that might hinder the development...

Christina

 

[RealBus]

If your plans go to schedule you can't control the weather and public holidays don't help. I've found that the key is in the planning and a couple of good teams of tradesman you can count on to be there when they say they will.

 

[Ocean Architect]

Planners.
Financiers.
Neighbours.

I firmly believe that as a developer, it doesn't matter when you build so long as your business model is solid.

If you're in an upswing, your tradies will charge you more, take longer, give you a lower priority, blow out your interest payments, your financiers throw money at you and your buyers etc but you make it all back with easier sales at a higher price.

During a downturn, your tradies are very polite, step on eggshells around you, charge you vastly lower rates, actually turn up and do the job (often with the boss on tools himself), but your financier will be a royal pain and your buyers will struggle with finance also.

Neighbours will be neighbours no matter what is going on (a bunch of whingeing crybabies) and planners never change ie you permanently have GPS coordinates typed into cruise missiles aimed at their house because they will drive you bonkers with complete disregard of your timeframe/money.

So long as you listen to the market and adapt accordingly (upswing: bigger, better, shinier. downturn: smaller, practical, cheaper) whilst doing your homework you'll be fine either way. Just stick to your percentages and whatever you do, as a first time developer, don't succumb to your emotional need to overcapitalise and make them super awesome when the market is telling you otherwise.

Good luck