Valuation, Feasibility & Highest and Best Use
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.
The promise
Build and defend a real estate feasibility model from first principles.
By the end you can
- Model revenues, costs, phasing, and finance
- Compute residual land value, NPV, and IRR
- Run sensitivities that expose the real risks
- Present a go / no-go with confidence
Where this course takes you
This course is part of 3 role tracks. Each ends in a professional deliverable and stacks toward a named certificate.
You'll produce: A development appraisal and execution brief — feasibility model logic, phasing, a risk register, and a go / no-go recommendation.
Development Feasibility & Management certificateYou'll produce: An investment committee memo — underwriting, a valuation cross-check, due-diligence findings, financing, and a clear recommendation.
Real Estate Investment Analysis certificateYou'll produce: A hotel or destination feasibility and asset plan — demand, positioning, operator logic, and returns.
Hospitality & Tourism Real Estate certificateCurriculum
What a feasibility model is
The purpose, anatomy, and failure modes of a feasibility model.
Revenue assumptions
Unit mix, pricing, GDV, and the pace of sales.
Cost assumptions
The cost stack: land, construction, fees, finance, contingency, profit.
Residual land value
What the land is worth, built up step by step.
Time value of money: NPV, IRR, DCF
Why timing matters, and how to price it.
Financing, sensitivity & risk
Leverage, stress-testing, and the feasibility narrative.
Applied Toolkit & Templates
Copy-ready feasibility templates, worked case studies, and a build-and-defend capstone that turn the course concepts into a working development analyst toolkit.
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
Feasibility Model Capstone: Build and Defend a Land Appraisal
An investment-committee-ready package containing: (1) a model structure and assumptions table with every input owned and sourced (placeholders marked "requires local market data" where a real source is not yet available); (2) GDV built from the unit mix with a blended price sanity-checked against comparables; (3) a full cost stack showing Total Development Cost per saleable sqm; (4) NPV and IRR against the stated hurdle rate, with the base-case cashflow; (5) a residual land value with the buy/renegotiate/decline logic against the asking price; (6) a downside case flexing correlated inputs, with the survival line (the price fall and cost rise at which the deal breaches the hurdle or a loan covenant); (7) a one-page narrative ending in a clear recommendation and the land price to pay, with the single load-bearing assumption identified.
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.
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.
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.