Property development aptitude test

[mattnz]

Hi all,

I am trying to create an aptitude test for property development. The prototype test is located in the link below and should only take 5-10 minutes to complete.

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=uhwieza5a3ri8ix125757

I am looking for:
1. those that are developers,
2. those who intend to develop and
3. those with no experience nor any intention to develop property to complete the survey.

I am trying to isolate the traits that are important to be good at property development, so having a wide range of people responding will greatly assist me.

Feel free to post here if you can think of any questions that should have been included but weren't.

Thanks alot,
Matt

 

[thatbum]

Uh I have to say that the questions are all pretty biased towards an obvious positive answer.

What were you hoping to find out exactly? I can probably guess how most people would answer, regardless of development skills or experience.

 

[spludgey]

That survey made me feel like I might be a little bit full of myself.

 

[mattnz]

Uh I have to say that the questions are all pretty biased towards an obvious positive answer.

What were you hoping to find out exactly? I can probably guess how most people would answer, regardless of development skills or experience.

Thanks for the feedback. A fair point. The aim is to be able to compare the non-developing population with those that are successful developers to determine if the answers to the test are a good indicator of whether a person should consider developing or not. I may be best to ask graded rather than binary questions.

Thanks alot
Matt

 

[westminster]

is there any special questions for Georgie1?

I'll go do it now for you.

 

[westminster]

I think you need more than yes/no questions.

For example I said no to 'would you be willing to look at 15 builders'. I think this would be uneconomically viable if you have to stump up cash for those builders to design. Myself I think I talked to 8 builders and got quotes from 5.

So you could have 0, 1-4, 5-9, 10-15

 

[mattnz]

is there any special questions for Georgie1?

I'll go do it now for you.

Lol. You mean, Georgie's property investing ethics aptitude test?
Q1. Would you go to any means possible to screw over a buyer, as long as you could legally get away with it?

 

[mattnz]

I think you need more than yes/no questions.

For example I said no to 'would you be willing to look at 15 builders'. I think this would be uneconomically viable if you have to stump up cash for those builders to design. Myself I think I talked to 8 builders and got quotes from 5.

So you could have 0, 1-4, 5-9, 10-15

Good point thanks. Having been through 15 builders to get the right outcome myself, it was the reference point. Hard question to answer though in terms of "how many".

It is just a prototype at this stage and will (hopefully) improve in time. Will see what kind of correlation I get back between those that are developers and those that aren't and what are likely to be statistically valid assumptions.

I decided that there must be a certain type of person that does developments when I recently went on a property investment tour in Texas. Of the 10 of us on the tour, 5 were developers so there were clearly things that highly correlated between developers and USA property investors.

 

[westminster]

Lol. You mean, Georgie's property investing ethics aptitude test?
Q1. Would you go to any means possible to screw over a buyer, as long as you could legally get away with it?

Why yes that would be the right question.

 

[mattnz]

I have received 20 responses so far and am already seeing some very clear patterns in the successful $1m+ profit developers.

There are only 2 "no" questions answers from any of them (some are straight yes's).

1. Would you go through 15 builders?
2. Are you comfortable with a moderate level of risk?

Very interesting. Will see how things go over the next few days, but early conclusions are that the top developers have a significant amount in common with each other (and with me).

It seems that often they see developing, when done correctly as low risk rather than moderate risk and I imagine that by the time they have significant profits, they don't need to go through as many builders any more to still get the right outcome.

Any thoughts from any other experienced developers on what the most important of all the attributes listed are? It appears that with the exception of these 2, the rest are required to be a good developer.

The non-developers with no interest in developing group averaged just 13.5 / 20, while the top 2 development groups averaged 18.5 and 18.75. The rest were in between.

The most consistent difference between the top (4/4) and bottom (1/5) group so far is whether they hate working for other people, I think this may say alot about motivation to succeed as a developer.

 

[westminster]

I have received 20 responses so far and am already seeing some very clear patterns in the successful $1m+ profit developers.

There are only 2 "no" questions answers from any of them (some are straight yes's).

1. Would you go through 15 builders?
2. Are you comfortable with a moderate level of risk?

Very interesting. Will see how things go over the next few days, but early conclusions are that the top developers have a significant amount in common with each other (and with me).

It seems that often they see developing, when done correctly as low risk rather than moderate risk and I imagine that by the time they have significant profits, they don't need to go through as many builders any more to still get the right outcome.

Any thoughts from any other experienced developers on what the most important of all the attributes listed are? It appears that with the exception of these 2, the rest are required to be a good developer.

The non-developers with no interest in developing group averaged just 13.5 / 20, while the top 2 development groups averaged 18.5 and 18.75. The rest were in between.

The most consistent difference between the top (4/4) and bottom (1/5) group so far is whether they hate working for other people, I think this may say alot about motivation to succeed as a developer.

Yes I agree - once you have done your first development and associated learnings you can streamline the process for the others. Homework still necessary.

For me I said no to moderate risk. Moderate is subjective term and even low risk is too. But I control as many risks as I can and whilst I can't control the market I will factor in some downturn in scenario planning. I am a risk averse person. I wouldn't borrow every single cent, put up my PPOR, on a risky venture.

So I suppose I might term that question, "What % risk of failure would stop you from developing" 5%, 10%, 15%

 

[mattnz]

Yes I agree - once you have done your first development and associated learnings you can streamline the process for the others. Homework still necessary.

For me I said no to moderate risk. Moderate is subjective term and even low risk is too. But I control as many risks as I can and whilst I can't control the market I will factor in some downturn in scenario planning. I am a risk averse person. I wouldn't borrow every single cent, put up my PPOR, on a risky venture.

So I suppose I might term that question, "What % risk of failure would stop you from developing" 5%, 10%, 15%

Great thanks. I see my approach to developing as relatively low risk also, but have been learning over time to try to remove any risk that I can find from the equation. Developing, done well is much less risky than a buy and hold strategy as you are purchasing at a wholesale discount.