Real Estate Development Consulting in the UAE

The key profit drivers for a real estate development project occur in the initial project stages. It is a saying in the development industry that the later you discover a problem, the more expensive it is to fix it – for example, revising an electrical design is less costly than re-doing electrical work on a construction site. A development project without a development and delivery strategy, inevitably returns less profit than a project with a professional and well thought-out strategy.

While large developers tend to operate with in-house development management teams, it is the small and medium enterprises as well as family run developers that can truly benefit from engaging a real estate consultant who can provide actionable solutions at a fraction of the overall project budget.

Simple real estate development projects, such as the construction of a few villas for private use, can be done with only two outsourced resources – the architect and the contractor. However – once the project is a commercial enterprise designed to meet return on investment hurdles and involves either the sale or rental of units to customers, the picture changes. This leaves a significant “gap”, which grows larger as the project’s complexity rises – which is, who is responsible for maintaining and even increasing the project’s return on investment? Who is coordinating the design and construction with other project aspects such as sales, marketing and finance? Who is advising the client at the key project milestones such as value engineering, design approval, procurement and authority approvals?

This is where a team of commercial property consultants can step in to fill the gap with a value-added solution that increases the project’s return on investment (ROI). This timely input from a professional development team at key stages of a project, such as concept design, value engineering, approvals and construction procurement, eliminates the need for the client to hire an expensive in-house team. This removes the developer’s headache and allows them to focus on their core strategy of delivering the most efficient product to the market while achieving their ambitions.