Property Development Cash Scenario Calculator

How the property development cash scenario calculator works

The first checkpoint pays land and prebuild costs. The second receives one stated loan draw and pays construction plus its contingency. The third receives gross sale proceeds and pays the sales fee, entered financing cash cost and loan principal. The model is deliberately limited to these three checkpoints rather than a construction draw schedule.

Project cost includes land, prebuild, construction with contingency, financing cash cost and sales fee. Loan principal is a financing inflow and repayment, not a profit expense. Additional equity funding is the positive amount needed to keep the opening and three closing balances nonnegative. The sufficient gross sale divides costs excluding sale commission by one minus that percentage and rounds upward to cents.

All costs, proceeds and financing availability are entered scenarios. Timing inside a checkpoint, staged progress claims, tax, draw interest, planning approval, engineering design and property valuation are not calculated. A positive project profit does not prove the cash plan is funded or that sales will occur.

Worked example

Land and prebuild total 150,000. Construction of 300,000 plus 10% contingency is 330,000. A 600,000 sale incurs 30,000 selling cost and 15,000 finance cost, so total project cost is 525,000 and profit is 75,000. With 100,000 initial equity and a 150,000 loan at construction, checkpoint cash is −50,000, −230,000 and 175,000, requiring 230,000 additional cash. A 650,000 sale raises profit to 122,500.

Sources and assumptions

The source material explains the underlying calculation or pricing structure. Entered prices, costs, schedules and scenario choices are your assumptions; this tool does not obtain supplier quotes or predict actual results.

• CFI: discounted cash flow formula and terminal assumptions
• SBA: business cost and financial planning