Advice on what to buy, what to build, and whether the numbers survive contact with reality.
Appraisal
Every scheme begins as a spreadsheet, and every spreadsheet is an argument. The assumptions matter more than the answer: exit values, build cost contingency, void period, finance cost and programme. A residual appraisal showing a healthy profit on a six-month letting assumption, in a market running at eleven months, is not showing a profit at all.
We prepare and stress-test:
- Residual and cashflow appraisals, with sensitivity on the variables that actually move the outcome
- Comparable evidence for both end value and rental assumption
- Build cost benchmarking and contingency positions
- Funding assumptions, including the covenant a lender will need to see
Structuring
How an investment is held affects what it costs to run, what it costs to sell, and who bears the risk. We work alongside your accountants and solicitors on holding structure, SPV formation where appropriate, and the practical consequences of each route, including the ones that only appear at disposal.
Development delivery
For schemes that proceed, we take them through:
- Planning strategy and the consent programme
- Professional team assembly: architect, engineer, cost consultant, principal designer
- Procurement route and contract form
- Programme and cost control through to practical completion
- Handover into management or sale
The advice we most often give
That a scheme should not proceed. Development in London is unforgiving of thin margins, and the discipline that matters most is saying so before money is committed.