Valuation, Feasibility & Highest and Best Use
Development Management
Managing a real estate development from land to delivery: the project lifecycle, the go/no-go feasibility gate, design and approvals, procurement, cost and programme control, construction-phase risk, and handover. This is the delivery complement to the feasibility courses — how a development manager actually orchestrates people, money, consultants, and contractors to turn an appraisal into a built, sold, and operating asset.
The promise
Manage a real estate development from land through delivery to handover.
By the end you can
- Run the go / no-go feasibility gate
- Control cost, programme, and construction risk
- Manage design, approvals, and procurement
- Deliver handover against the brief
Where this course takes you
This course is part of 1 role track. It ends in a professional deliverable and stacks toward a named certificate.
Curriculum
The Development Lifecycle & the DM's Role
The stages of a development from land to operation, the development manager as orchestrator across them, and how equity, debt and land structure the money.
Land, Feasibility Gate & Structuring
Site acquisition and due diligence, the go/no-go feasibility gate, and deal structuring including JVs and off-plan land payment terms.
Design, Approvals & Consultants
Setting the brief and managing design, navigating planning and permits with authorities, and appointing and managing the consultant team.
Procurement, Cost & Programme
Procurement routes, cost planning and control through the cost report, and programme and critical-path management.
Delivery, Risk & Handover
Construction-phase risk and change control, responding to cost overruns and delays, and handover into sales, leasing and operation.
Course assessment
Sign in to open lessons and track your progress.
The capstone project
This course ends in a real professional deliverable. Complete the course — including the capstone — and your certificate is issued automatically.
Your final deliverable
Development Execution Capstone
A five-part submission — stage plan, procurement & cost-control approach, programme milestones, risk register (8+ rows), and top 3 delivery risks — presented as an institutional development-management document with markdown tables. It should demonstrate: a clear go/no-go and gate discipline; a justified procurement route tied to the project's certainty and inflation risk; a cost-control loop built around the cost report, contingency trend and change control; a critical path that honestly models approvals and long-lead items; a live risk register with owners and responses; and an explicit grasp of the off-plan handover-and-registration obligation and how a critical-path slip threatens both buyer commitments and fixed land instalments. Strong submissions invent no figures — every decision-driving number is marked requires local market data with the specific data source named — and reflect the realities of the chosen emerging market.
Graded on five criteria
- Method & rigour — The right framework, applied correctly, with the working shown — not just an answer.
- Data honesty — Every figure is sourced, triangulated, or explicitly flagged “requires local market data”. Nothing is invented.
- Analysis & judgment — Assumptions are explicit, at least one alternative is weighed, and the key risks are quantified.
- Recommendation — A clear, decision-useful conclusion a professional could act on — with the conditions that qualify it.
- Communication — Structured, concise, and client-ready — the argument lands.
Pass criteria
A submission passes when it meets the bar on all five criteria — the work is something a competent professional could put in front of a client or committee. The Verified Professional credential is issued on a pass.
Resubmission
Work that isn't there yet comes back marked “needs work” with specific feedback. You revise and resubmit — there is no penalty and no limit on attempts.
More in this academy
Highest and Best Use in Practice
Determine the use that is legally permissible, physically possible, financially feasible, and maximally productive.
Financial Feasibility & Financial Modelling
Build and defend a real estate feasibility model from first principles: revenue and cost assumptions, residual land value, the time value of money (NPV, IRR, DCF), financing, and sensitivity. Every quantitative idea is taught with an interactive calculator you can drive yourself.
Valuation Essentials
How professionals estimate market value and defend it: bases of value, the comparable, income, residual and cost approaches, and writing and reviewing a valuation, with emphasis on thin-data emerging markets.