When I was in grad school studying real estate, I remember one of my professors once making a joke about the lifecycle of developers. He said that developers usually start by first doing a small project. Then they take the profits from that project and roll them into a bigger project. Once that is done, they take those profits and roll them into an even bigger project. And then they go bankrupt.

The point he was trying to make was that development is a risky business. One of the reasons for this — and there are countless reasons — is that projects take a long time. This means that during the regular course of a project, it is not unusual to be faced with a handful of very different markets. And during these varied market conditions, you are likely going to make different decisions (and wish you had made different decisions).

Take, for example, land.

One of the customary ways to buy development land in Toronto during the last cycle was to pay for it with the help of a land loan. Land loans are not based on any sort of debt service coverage ratio because, typically, there isn't enough (or any) income to actually service the loan. It's all based on the land's future potential.

Instead what happens is that you forecast how long you'll need to hold the land, you budget for the interest costs during this period, and then you convince yourself that you'll be able to "take out" this loan in the future — typically by way of a construction loan or by selling the land to someone else. Unless you have the resources to land bank, you are implicitly making the assumption that there will be a market in the future.

This assumption works great in a rising market because the land often continues to appreciate (sometimes regardless of your actions) and usually you or someone else can create a productive use for it. But if the music stops during this period, it can be problematic, because now you may only have one way out:

Cover photo by amirgraphy on Unsplash