Development land, as we often talk about on this blog, should be the residual claimant in a pro forma. Meaning, start with your revenue, subtract your costs and required margin, and then see how much money is leftover to pay for the land. This is, in theory, how you should value land.

It’s also the most disciplined way to go about your underwriting. In fact, it can be beneficial to not know the asking price or broker guidance for a new site until you’ve completed this exercise. That way you won’t bias yourself.

However, in practice, it can be difficult to do all of this. In a rising market, you might find that there’s always some other developer who is willing to be more aggressive on their assumptions, which means they will be willing to pay more for the same piece of land.

And so if you want to be in the game, you might find yourself doing the exact opposite: starting with the land price and then trying to figure out how to make the rest of your model work. We’ve all been there.

During this stage of the cycle, you get punished for being conservative and disciplined — you don’t win sites. But when the market turns, discipline and conservatism get rewarded handsomely. You then become thankful for the deals you didn’t do. And I’m sure that many prudent risk managers are feeling this way right now.

It is very challenging to underwrite new sites today. Many of the assumptions that go into a pro forma are unclear and unknowable. And so the spread between what developer’s models are telling them to pay and what landowners want to sell for is often significant. That is why everyone is trying to find “creative deal structures” that can be used to close this gap.

At some point, though, the gap will actually close; things will once again feel clear and knowable. I have absolutely no idea when that will happen, but I do know that when it does, it will then be too late from a maximum opportunity standpoint.

Because that’s how risk works. Once the uncertainty is gone, it’s no longer a risk. And if it’s no longer a risk, then you’re not going to be paid for bearing it.