01
Acquisition
Purchase price, stamp duty, legal fees, surveys and acquisition costs.
Development management 02
Feasibility and cost planning
A development appraisal built by a quantity surveyor
Most appraisals are built by agents using a rate per square foot. Ours are built from the scheme itself, with every cost, fee and assumption visible.
- 01
A full development appraisal with an elemental cost plan
- 02
A written basis of every assumption and the main risks
- 03
A sensitivity table you can use with lenders and partners
The problem
An appraisal that only works on paper
A tidy spreadsheet can be wrong by enough to wipe out the profit.
A rate per square foot hides everything that makes a scheme expensive: a basement, a difficult structure, a high specification, a constrained site. It is an average of other people’s projects, not a price for yours.
Fees, finance, contingency and sales costs are underestimated or missing, and nobody tests what happens if costs rise or sales slow. The appraisal looks fine until the first tender comes back.
What the appraisal contains
Every cost, visible
Built from elements, not from averages.
02
Construction cost plan
An elemental cost plan to NRM1, priced at current market rates for the actual scheme.
03
Fees and statutory costs
Design team, planning, building control, warranties and any planning obligations.
04
Finance
Finance costs based on how and when the money is actually drawn, not a flat percentage.
05
Contingency
Set to the real risk of the scheme and reduced as the design and surveys firm up.
06
Sales and profit
Agent and legal costs on sale, and the resulting profit on cost and on gross development value.
If you have not seen where the scheme breaks, you have not tested it.
Our position on feasibility
Every appraisal includes sensitivity analysis: what happens to the profit if build costs rise by five or ten percent, if sales values fall, or if the programme runs three or six months late.
As the design develops, we update the cost plan so you always know where the numbers stand before each decision, not after it.
Questions
Feasibility, answered directly
Can I use your appraisal to approach lenders?
Yes. It is prepared in the form development lenders expect and can be used in your funding application.
What if the design changes?
We update the cost plan as the design develops so you always know where the numbers stand.
How accurate is an early cost plan?
At an early stage it carries a contingency for design risk. As the design and surveys progress, the contingency reduces and the figures firm up.
Can you review an appraisal someone else has prepared?
Yes. We test the build cost, fees, finance and assumptions and tell you where the appraisal is optimistic.
Insights
Further reading on cost planning
Cost planning
What an order of cost estimate should contain
It is the first figure a scheme produces and the one everything afterwards is measured against. Getting its contents...
Read the article
Cost planning
What a cost plan must state on its face
Two cost plans can carry the same total and mean entirely different things. The difference is in what each one says...
Read the article
Cost planning
How to set a construction contingency that survives
Most contingencies are a percentage somebody inherited. That figure cannot be defended, cannot be released and tells...
Read the article