An Introduction to Property Development

Session 1

Getting Started – The Fundamentals

• What the developer’s role is​
• What cannot be delegated
• Knowing a little about a lot of issues
• The cost of using experts
• Understanding the influences that must be juggled: occupier demand, site availability, planning constraints, finance, professional fees and construction costs, legal rights and obligations
• Making decisions, the developer’s principal responsibility

Planning consent – The Key to Value Uplift - but Primary Source of Frustration for Most Developers

• The concept of development
• When is planning permission required?
• Planning applications and appeals
• Costs of pre-application consultation, applying and appealing
• Financial and other enforceable agreements with and undertakings to local authorities
• Planning officers and councillors; what they do and don’t do and how to interact with them
• Environmental appraisals

Finding and Acquiring Sites

• How sites are found. Where and how to look
• Investigations before purchase
• Outright acquisition, conditional contracts and options
• How much to pay – residual valuations and comparable evidence
• Local, district and regional plans. Monitoring changes to plans
• Contamination risks
• Land zoned for planning and white land
• Uses and density considerations

Chair: 
Dan Mitchell, Planning Director, Barton Willmore, now Stantec

Speaker:
Kevin Hunt, Senior Director - Development & Planning, BNP Paribas Real Estate

Session 2 

The Development Team – Who are They? What do They Actually Do? How do you Manage Them?

• Leadership – a vital ingredient, but who is to be the leader? 
• Managing your team to deliver your project, not the last one they did
• Management of stakeholders, especially the negative ones 
• Reputation counts for nothing – track records do

Design and Construction

• Who does what
• The pre-site plan
• Once-on-site management
• What happens after practical completion
• Alternative structures
• Cost control
• Monitoring and controlling progress
• Dispute resolution
• Defining completion
• The involvement of funders and pre-let occupiers
• Health and safety issues
• Satisfying building regulators

Marketing/Letting/Sale 

• The role of the agent
• Exploring the options
• Marketing
• Branding
• Phasing
• Marketing tools
• Marketing costs
• Selecting agents; agreeing fees
• Liaison with lawyers
• Selling the completed development 

Chair: 
Dan Mitchell, Planning Director, Barton Willmore, now Stantec

Speaker: 
Bradley Carter, Development Director, The Pickstock Group

Session 3

Valuation

• Nature of valuation and why it is fundamental to property development – why, how and when should valuations be done? By whom?
• Concept of residual valuation
• Assembling and verifying essential data - rents and yields
  - construction costs
  - professional fees
  - finance charges
• Checks and balances
  - setting the ‘right’ developer’s profit
  - scenario testing and sensitivity analysis
  - DCF
• Market volatility and its effect
  - changes in interest rates
  - construction costs
  - cost of delays
  - void periods
  - changes in occupier demand and investment demand
• Monitoring cash flow and budget
  - Use of contingencies
  - Dealing with cost overruns      
  - Provisional sums           
  - Rental growth and cost inflation

Chair: 
Dan Mitchell, Planning Director, Barton Willmore, now Stantec

Speaker: 
Simon Wainwright, Managing Director, JPW Real Estate

Session 4

The Legal Agreements

• The purpose of legal documents 
• The suite of agreements and the contractual matrix
• How project insurance interacts with the legal documentation
• Dealing with development and construction risk
• Design and construct building contracts
• Key issues on pre-let agreements

So, What Goes Wrong Most Often? How to Avoid the Many Pitfalls. The Art of Maximising Profits 

• Most frequently made mistakes
• How to spot the dangers – how to avoid them
• How to maximise profits
• Tax planning
• How to minimise the risks

Financing Development

• Common methods of funding development and some sources
• ​Structuring the documentation required
• Risk and reward in a joint venture partnership and the legal frameworks and documentation

Chair: 
Dan Mitchell, Planning Director, Barton Willmore, now Stantec

Speakers: 
Nick Pinder, Partner, Eversheds Sutherland
Lucy Chadwick, Partner, Eversheds Sutherland