Guide to Real Estate Development

Grow your real estate development company by using the right software and tools
By A.S. White

As a professional real estate developer, you know that it's important to stay on top of the market. You know that many of the real estate development tools are nothing more than flashes in the pan and can actually make your commercial real estate development more difficult. It's therefore important to find the right tools the first time around.

While the spreadsheet is the best friend of most real estate development companies, they can also become quickly overly complex and cumbersome. This can then increase the risk for a simple mistake that could cost you millions of dollars. There are many innovative tools available to real estate developers. Some of these tools can help analyze cash flow projections, forecast unit sales and even manage debt equity. These can help you keep your next land development project in the black from Day 1.

When choosing new tools to assist in your real estate development business, among the key points to consider are:

1. The ability of the real estate development software to grow and evolve as you move through real estate business development.

2. The flexibility of the tool to move between residential and commercial real estate development.

3. The effectiveness of the tool to help you secure more capital investments for your real estate development project.

Action Steps

The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Choose real estate development software that grows as you do For commercial real estate developers, it's important to choose new tools that truly understand the real estate development industry. And it's key to know that real estate development companies grow and change over time. So when you're choosing a piece of software for your business, be sure that it has the ability to grow with you as your real estate company grows.

I recommend: planEASe offers a wide variety of modules for its commercial real estate development software, including options for reporting and graphics.

Plan for your future needs for both residential and commercial real estate development If your commercial real estate development company works with residential real estate development, it's important that the software you choose understands the inherent issues with this arm of the real estate business. Development, after all, is very different in the residential market than the commercial market.

I recommend: RealData's On Schedule offers you the ability to plan for subdivision and condominium development, as well as any piece of land development that's done in stages.

Improve your real estate development project's financing options The key to all land development is, of course, the financing. A commercial real estate development company cannot succeed without a strong network of financing options available to them. The right real estate development tools can help to sell your project to capital investors, allowing you to further your development goals.

I recommend: ARGUS Developer includes a Debt Equity module that can be used to further analyze your development's financing options.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

No real estate development software is a substitute for experience in the real estate development industry. Always have your internal experts (you and your employees) look at a new tool before investing to ensure that it won't actually slow down your development efforts.