Do You Need a Project Manager for Your Property Development Project?
A project manager (or property development manager) can be a valuable team member for property development projects. Like line managers and senior managers in large organisations, property development managers assist the developer with coordinating the team, budgeting and cash flow, delegation, as well as technical know-how. Project managers can and ideally should be involved in the project from the earliest stages.
Planning and Coordination
Property development managers coordinate the entire team, make certain that everyone is fulfilling their role according to the schedules, and keep the momentum going as the project moves from one phase to another. Experienced project managers can be brought onboard to assist with planning and feasibility, together with appropriate real estate development software to ensure technical accuracy.
Budgeting and Cash Flow
Good property development managers can help the developer balance a range of different priorities, one of them being cash flow and budgeting considerations. Project managers should have good financial acumen and be very familiar with all feasibility, cash flow issues, costs of development projects, projections and estimates, and market conditions. More often than not, the developer will be familiar with using property development or property valuation software to assist them with this process.
Budgeting factors often need to be balanced against construction quality and goals as well as time considerations. As such, your project manager can help provide a second opinion on important decisions, and alert the developer to potential cash flow issues.
Meeting Interim and Final Goals
Many property development managers will have years of experiences and considerable familiarity with all stages of the property development process. This means they’re able to tune and see the big picture to help keep the development project on track, anticipate potential issues, and keep the entire enterprise focused on interim as well as final goals
Technical Input
Most project managers can support the developer by providing technical input about any stage of the development process. This means they should have good knowledge of local regulations, zoning laws, financing issues, compliance, tax, and other technical aspects of the construction, development application, and marketing and sales process.
Collaborating With Advisers
Project managers can assist with collaborating and liaising with different advisers and team members. As they’re on the ‘front line’ of the development project and have technical expertise, they can provide the developer with different insight into working with advisers and the finer details of the other advisers on the developer’s team.
From solicitors to town planners and construction contractors, the project manager may source and liaise with the adviser on the developer’s behalf.
As such, project managers will usually need to have excellent people and communication skills, a good knowledge of which advisers should be consulted at different periods of the project, and regulations and industry knowledge.
Who Needs a Development Manager?
A property development manager will prove to be most useful for larger construction and development projects where the scale of the enterprise is such as the developer will need an extra manager to keep track of all the different facets. Time challenged developers who are overseeing multiple developments will also benefit from having a dedicated property development manager on each project.
Richard Hughes says:
If you want to have a developmental project that runs smoothly, a project manager is a completely essential member of staff. It is important to remember that having a project manager is not enough in and of itself. You need to find a good one to be truly successful. Although this really goes without saying.
July 5th, 2012 at 12:20 pm