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Updated about 7 years ago, 09/23/2017
Large scale land subdivision projects
Does any BP member has professional experience dealing with large scale land subdivision projects? I found very little information about that subject on the forum.
I've ran a few successful subdivision projects back in Europe (France) and developped some parcels in California, and would be interested in learning more about the subject.
These operations can if executed properly, be very profitable, but i have yet to confirm if it is feasible in the US, anf if there is demand for shovel ready lots.
In my home country, land subdivision can be very lucrative as it usually requires little money down and the cycle is usually faster than construction (less than a year). It also bears significantly less risk than ground up construction.
On the financial side, lenders will usually only require 15%-25% down, but will ask above 65%-70% pre-sale before underwritting. Pre sale proceeds bring more equity in the deal and if that's not enough mezzanine debt can be raised through crowd funding or other private lenders; as a result almost 100% of the developer equity can be cashed out if structured properly. These deals normaly need to be above $2million to make sense as engineering, utilities and road works need scale to make economic sense.
I am not sure if this deal structure would even be legal in the US, and if this type of projects would be profitable.
Some places like Texas, Utah, Colorado have huge population growth, so i guess it could make sense in those places..
Any info welcome