Valuation, Feasibility & Highest and Best Use
Development Management
Managing a real estate development from land to delivery and beyond: the project lifecycle, controlling land conditionally, the go/no-go feasibility gate, design for cost and operation, approvals and consultants, procurement, cost and programme control, construction-phase risk, contracts, change and claims, handover, the defects and warranty tail, and the safety and conduct duties that do not transfer. 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, handover and the obligations that outlast it — the gates, the contracts, the money and the duties that do not transfer.
By the end you can
- Control land conditionally and run a disciplined go / no-go feasibility gate
- Drive cost and operating cost through design, and manage consultants and approvals
- Choose a procurement route, control cost and programme, and read the critical path
- Run change and claims through the contract, and manage delivery risk to handover
- Manage the defects, warranty and final-account tail, and hold safety and conduct duties
Where this course takes you
This course is part of 1 role track, which ends in a professional deliverable.
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.
Contracts, Change and Claims
The construction contract is the project's operating system. What it actually allocates, how a variation becomes money and time, how claims are built and defended, and how disputes are resolved before they consume the project.
Duties, Safety and Conduct in Delivery
Construction is where the most serious duties in real estate attach. What a development manager is personally responsible for, why safety obligations cannot be delegated away, and how to behave when commercial pressure argues for the wrong decision.
Course assessment
Sign in to open lessons and track your progress.
The capstone project
This course ends in a real professional deliverable. Use the brief and the five criteria below to check your own work against the standard a competent professional would be held to.
Your final deliverable
Development Execution Capstone
Check your work against 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.
When it's ready
Your deliverable is ready when it meets the bar on all five criteria — work a competent professional could put in front of a client or committee.
Revising your work
The capstone is self-directed: you check your own work against the rubric. Where a criterion isn't met yet, revise that part and check it again — as many times as you need.
More in this academy
Highest and Best Use in Practice
Determine the use that is legally permissible, physically possible, financially feasible and maximally productive — then price it, compare it against real alternatives, and write a recommendation that survives challenge.
Financial Feasibility & Financial Modelling
Build and defend a real estate feasibility model from first principles — and know exactly where its precision stops being real. What a model is and what it cannot tell you, revenue assumptions tested against evidence rather than hope, the cost stack and where estimates go wrong, residual land value, the time value of money, how programme and finance turn time into cost, and sensitivity and risk. Ends with an applied toolkit of model, assumptions, cost and sensitivity templates and two worked cases, including re-running a scheme when costs overrun and sales slow.
Valuation Essentials
How professionals estimate market value and defend it: bases of value, measurement and the unit of comparison, the comparable, income, residual and cost approaches, hope value and planning risk, operational and specialised property where the business is the value, and how purpose changes the work — valuation for lending, for financial reporting and for disputes, with the independence, uncertainty and reporting discipline that a signed figure requires. Written with emphasis on thin-data emerging markets.