Thin Margins, Big Calls: Building and developing when the numbers have to work first time

Every development that failed in the last three years looked good on a spreadsheet.

Build costs have not come back. Values have not run away for you. The gap between a project that works and one that bleeds you is now measured in decisions, not in market luck. Getting the feasibility right. Picking a project your site and your money can actually carry. Specifying products that hold up long after the builder has driven off.

This is a working session on all three.

What you’ll take away

• The numbers. How to build and stress-test a feasibility that survives contact with reality, and the line items that most commonly blow the whole thing up
• The project. Choosing the right project type for your site, your lending and your risk tolerance and knowing when the honest answer is don’t build
• The product. Specification decisions read through cost of ownership rather than purchase price: durability, maintenance exposure, tenant appeal, and where cheap gets expensive
• The contract. What to look for in a build contract when you are the investor, not the homeowner

G.J. Gardner brings real project case studies actual feasibility numbers, actual timelines, and the decisions that made or cost money. Fisher & Paykel and Haier take us inside how appliances and interiors are designed and chosen, and what that means for the properties you own and let.

No theory. No pitch. Bring your project, your numbers and your questions.

And then there’s the building

We are the first group hosted at Fisher & Paykel’s new $220 million Penrose campus, ahead of the Prime Minister’s official opening later in October.

It is New Zealand’s largest mass-timber commercial building, designed for net-zero operational emissions, and now the global home of design and product development for the brand. You will tour the public parts of the campus, including the display kitchen and laundry. You will be standing in it before almost anyone else in the country.

Who this is for

Investors weighing up their first development, anyone mid-project and second-guessing the numbers, and long-term holders deciding whether building is the better use of their next dollar.

Register now. Venue capacity is fixed and this one will not be repeated.