How we assess a residential development site

We look at far more sites than we buy. The filter is deliberately unforgiving, because the cost of a bad acquisition is paid over the following three years, not on the day of settlement.

Four questions decide it. What does the planning overlay actually permit, as distinct from what a vendor’s feasibility assumes? What has genuinely sold nearby in the last twelve months, at what price and after how long on market? What does the build cost, priced by a builder rather than by a rate per square metre? And what is the exit if the market moves against us before completion?

A site has to answer all four. Where the numbers only work under optimistic assumptions on more than one of them, we pass. That discipline is why our portfolio is smaller than it could be — and why the projects in it were delivered.