Property Development 101: Introduction

by Adam on 23 June, 2009

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If you’ve ever watched an episode of Grand Designs or talked with a friend who has been through the building/development process, you’ll realise that there are many small but significant elements that must come together in order to successfully complete any Property Development project.

But where can you look to find out how all of these elements fit together?

This article is an introduction to a step-by-step series that brings together all the elements into one simple online property development course.

Property Development 101: Introduction

Although each property development project has its own unique contraints, there are still common tasks and events that can be applied to any project.

Over the years, we have documented and refined all of our learnings from each project into what is essentially a simple, running checklist, that we call The 7 Steps.

We’ve used The 7 Steps property development system on:

Luxury Island Villas in the Great Barrier Reef
79 dwelling infill residential subdivisional estates
Dual and Triple Occupancy developments
Residential apartment/commercial hybrids
Church conversions
Award winning home renovations and custom builds

The 7 Steps

The 7 Steps are seven natural, sequential groupings of tasks that must be accomplished for any property development project:

Each of the 7 Steps has a goal that serves as a significant milestone for the project.

A brief description of each of the 7 Steps can be found below as well as the goal/milestone that concludes each Step.

Step 1: Assessment

A common first question we get asked by clients when considering potential projects is: “Is this project worth proceeding with or are we just wasting our time”? This step involves gathering preliminary data, relevant planning policies and a site/context visit.

The goal of this step is to provide a Preliminary Development Assessment that gives a project a High (good to go), Medium (Proceed with caution) or Low (no go) level of confidence to proceed – before spending too much time or money.

Step 2: Strategy

At this point, the potential development has a Green (or at least a Yellow) Light. As Steven Covey says, “Begin with the end in mind”. This Step is devoted to devising a strategy that takes your project from where it is now to the end you have in mind.

The goal of this step is to produce a Strategic Business Plan for the project that will ensure all project partners (financier, accountant, solicitor, planners, architect & builder etc) are on the same page.

Step 3: Concept

Your Strategic Business Plan now contains a budget allowance for architectural design and building. Your site may also present its own building footprint and size constraints. Balancing these constraints its time to start dreaming as together we produce concepts that adhere to high level State and Local planning policy.

Goal: Produce Concept Drawings that satisfy Size-Finish-Cost criteria and have pre-planning approval.

Step 4: Application

Now that you have Concept Drawings with some level of Pre-planning support, its time to progress your documentation up to Town Planning standard by incorporating site specific, State and Local council requirements. The planning permit process is quite involved and your understanding of it is critical to seeing the best outcome for your project.

Goal: Obtain a Town Planning Permit