Real Estate Development
Every post in the "Real Estate Development" series, in reading order. · 28 posts
- Part 1
Real Estate Development Is Five Trades, Not One Job
A reading map for a 26-post series on real estate development — the five trades a developer actually coordinates (site, numbers, rules, time, product type), and why the macro forces move all five at once.
- Part 2
Real Estate Development Starts Long Before Construction
A practical look at real estate development, market cycles, risk, partnerships, and the teams that turn an idea into a real project. 👋
- Part 3
Real Estate Development Starts with the Site
A simple look at site acquisition, due diligence, title, market analysis, and why controlling the land is where real estate development really begins. 👋
- Part 4
Real Estate Development Only Works When the Numbers Work
The value side of real estate feasibility — pro forma, NOI, cap rate, and land residual. The instruments that decide whether a project's stabilized value will exceed its all-in cost before you ever talk to a lender.
- Part 5
The Capital Stack Is Where Real Estate Deals Actually Get Decided
Debt and equity want different things, leverage amplifies both ways, and lender ratios — LTV, DSCR, debt yield — are how lenders translate risk into hard caps on what a deal can carry.
- Part 6
Real Estate Development Only Works If the Rules Let It
A practical look at land residual pricing, entitlements, CEQA, zoning, and why real estate development is as much about approvals and constraints as it is about design. 👋
- Part 7
Building Homes Means Building Through Time
The third binding test in residential master-planned development — beyond feasibility math and entitlement, can the coalition behind a project hold together for the 20–40 years it takes to deliver? Worked cases (Irvine, Summerlin, Woodlands, Reston, Tejon, California Forever) and the strongest counterarguments (Tokyo, Abundance, Strong Towns, Demsas).
- Part 8
Office Development Looks Simpler from Far Away
A practical look at office development, product types, leasing, effective rent, supply and demand, and why office real estate is really a team sport. 👋
- Part 9
Listening to a Hines Managing Director Explain How a $3B Project Actually Moves
I joined a UC San Diego conversation on real estate planning and development, and one guest talk completely changed how I picture a large mixed-use project coming to life. 👋
- Part 10
Apartment Development Is a Long Game, and Everything Follows From That
How the rent-or-sell decision shapes apartment development, why homeownership is your real competition, and what building codes reveal about construction economics.
- Part 11
The Pro Forma Is Where Multifamily Development Actually Happens
How feasibility decides whether a multifamily project moves forward — site selection, density calculations, impact fees, absorption risk, and the developer's cap rate.
- Part 12
Multifamily Feasibility Runs on Absorption and Developer's Cap Rate
Two pro forma inputs decide whether a multifamily project actually pencils — how fast it leases up, and whether the developer's cap rate beats the market by enough to justify the construction risk.
- Part 13
Affordable Housing Is a Financing Problem Before It Is a Building Problem
Why affordable and market-rate multifamily share the same construction process but completely different economics — and how layered financing, tax credits, and California density tools change the math.
- Part 14
Tax Credits and Density Bonuses Are How Affordable Housing Actually Closes
LIHTC syndication, California density bonus law, and Transit Priority Area programs — the layered tools that close the financing gap on affordable housing, and what each one trades.
- Part 15
Building for People Who Don't Want to Leave
Senior housing development requires solving an unusual problem — your target resident isn't looking for you yet, but a specific event will change that.
- Part 16
Senior Housing Is an Operations Business with Real Estate Around It
Once you compare expense ratios across senior housing tiers, the asset class stops looking like real estate. The building is the container; the care is the business — and lenders, operators, and absorption math all reflect that.
- Part 17
Industrial Real Estate Is Five Different Businesses in One Zoning Category
Inside what we call "industrial real estate" are five distinct product types — each with its own tenant logic, location criteria, and investment risk profile.
- Part 18
The Break-Even Rent Is the Number That Keeps Industrial Development Honest
Warehouse demand is a population bet. Self storage follows rooftops. And break-even rent is the calculation that forces every assumption to be honest.
- Part 19
Industrial Buildings Are Boring on Purpose
A 400,000 sq ft case study in Oceanside shows how phasing, tilt-up construction, and a handful of building specs do all the work an industrial developer can't leave to architecture.
- Part 20
Industrial Leasing Is Hunting Elephants, Not Squirrels
Industrial developers rarely build on speculation — they line up tenants first, then design the building around the lease. Here's how that pre-leasing pipeline actually works.
- Part 21
Retail Is the One Real Estate Type Where the Landlord Wants the Tenant to Sell More
The five flavors of shopping center, the gravity of anchor tenants, and the percentage rent structure that makes retail landlords actually cheer for their tenants' sales.
- Part 22
A Shopping Center Is an Underwriting Bet on the Trade Area Around It
Drive time, capture rates, demographics, and leakage — the trade area analysis that decides whether a retail site is worth buying, applied to a real Bay Area case study.
- Part 23
Applying the Trade Area Math to a Real East Bay Shopping Center
A Fremont retail site walked through end-to-end — competition inventory, primary trade area purchasing power, supportable sales per square foot, and the rent number that decides whether the deal pencils.
- Part 24
A Shopping Center Has to Sell You Something Amazon Can't
E-commerce keeps eating retail share, but not every category — and the shopping centers that survive are offering experiences, services, and tenants that can't ship in a box.
- Part 25
Real Estate Doesn't Move Like Tech, and That's Both Its Protection and Its Trap
Real estate evolves slowly, attracts patient capital, and creates real wealth — but the same slowness is why developers who forget the 2008 lessons keep relearning them.
- Part 26
COVID Didn't Change Real Estate — It Pulled Five Years of Change Into Eighteen Months
Remote work, e-commerce warehousing, automation, infrastructure spending, and demographic redistribution were all already happening — the pandemic just compressed the timeline.
- Part 27
What Real Estate Has to Become — Climate, Code, and the Shape of Cities
Demographics, climate, housing affordability, and smart-city technology aren't separate trends — together they're rewriting what gets built, where, and for whom over the next two decades.
- Part 28
What Twenty-Six Posts on Real Estate Development Actually Added Up To
A capstone for a 26-post series — what the five-trade coordination frame implies for readers, and what I still don't understand after writing it.