Field note N-104 · 2026-08-08
Before you buy the land: the feasibility review that decides the project
The most expensive mistakes in development are made before the land is owned. After closing, every problem the site was hiding becomes yours — priced at whatever it costs to fix, not at what it would have cost to discover. Feasibility review is the discipline of discovering it first, while the answer can still be "no," or "yes, at a lower price."
The land price is not the number
The number that decides the project is the all-in cost of the finished asset: land, hard construction, soft costs (design, engineering, permits, fees), financing, carrying costs through approval and construction, and a contingency sized for what you don't yet know. Set that against what the finished project actually supports — rents, sale value, your own use — and you have a feasibility budget. If the numbers only work when everything goes right, the numbers don't work. A defensible feasibility budget is also your negotiating instrument: it tells you what the land is worth to your project, which is not the same as its asking price.
Zoning tells you what you may build — read it yourself
"Zoned residential" in a listing is not an answer; it's an invitation to check. What density, what height, what setbacks, what parking requirement, what overlays — and above all, whether your intended project is allowed by right or requires discretionary approval. That last distinction can move the timeline by a year or more and adds an approval you can be denied. Read the actual code for the actual parcel, and put the load-bearing questions to the jurisdiction in writing before escrow closes, not after.
The site keeps its secrets until you dig
Soils and geotechnical conditions, groundwater, undocumented fill, easements crossing the buildable area, access rights, drainage obligations, environmental history, and — chronically underestimated — utility capacity at the property line rather than "utilities nearby." Any one of these can carry a six-figure correction. The studies that reveal them cost a fraction of that, and a purchase contract with a proper due-diligence contingency gives you the time to run them while the seller waits, not while your loan accrues.
Time is a line item
Every month between purchase and permit is interest, taxes, insurance, and construction-cost escalation — carried by you, producing nothing. A parcel that needs entitlements is not comparable to one that builds by right, even at the same price, because the entitlement parcel's real cost includes a year or more of carry and the risk of a denial. Put the approval timeline into the feasibility number explicitly. If the deal only pencils with an optimistic approval schedule, see the first rule above.
Buy the right to walk away
The feasibility phase has one deliverable: a written go/no-go with the numbers attached. Negotiate a due-diligence period in escrow and treat the study costs — survey, geotech, title review, a feasibility budget — as insurance priced in thousandths of the mistake it prevents. Owners who lose money on land rarely lose it because the studies were wrong; they lose it because the studies were never run, or the answer was unwelcome and overridden. The discipline is walking away when the number says walk.
This note is general guidance, not legal advice. If you're weighing a specific parcel, a project review runs this exact examination on your numbers before you're committed.