1. What This Tool Does

This is a quarterly cashflow feasibility model for Australian land subdivision and residential development projects. It takes your project assumptions — land price, lot count, sale price, construction costs, finance terms — and produces a full cashflow forecast with project returns, lending metrics, sensitivity analysis, and risk modelling.

The model is designed to replicate the output of institutional-grade feasibility tools like Estate Master, in a single self-contained HTML file that runs entirely in your browser. No data leaves your machine.

2. Getting Started — Recommended Workflow

Follow this sequence when setting up a new feasibility:

1. Name your project — Enter the project name in the top bar. This appears on exports and saved files.
2. Land Purchase — Enter purchase price, stamp duty rate, legal/acquisition costs, and ownership percentage (if a JV).
3. Lots & Pricing — Enter total lots (or use the Lot Calculator) and your retail lot price (GST-inclusive).
4. Sales assumptions — Set the annual sales rate, lots per stage (default 45), and sales commencement year.
5. Development Costs — Enter construction costs (blended per-lot or detailed OPC breakdown), dev charges, professional fees, landscape, and major works.
6. Financing — Set Land LVR, Construction LVR, interest rates, and release fee / clearance ratio.
7. Fees & Contingencies — Set DM fee %, construction contingency %, project contingency %, agent commission %, and marketing %.
8. Review outputs — Check the hero metrics bar, development summary table, charts, and cashflow table.
9. Goal Seek — Use the Goal Seek section to find the maximum land price at your target return.
10. Stress test — Run Monte Carlo simulations and review sensitivity tables to understand risk.
11. Save & Export — Save your feasibility as an HTML file, export to PDF, or generate an Excel workbook.

3. Tabs Overview

4. Input Sections (Model Tab)

4.1 Land Purchase

• Purchase Price — The total land purchase price. Highlighted in yellow as a key input.
• Stamp Duty (%) — Applied to the purchase price. Stamp duty is equity-funded (not financed by the bank).
• Legals — Legal and acquisition costs (total). Also equity-funded.
• Ownership % — Your percentage ownership. Set to 100% unless modelling a JV. If less than 100%, cashflows and returns are scaled to your share.
• Additional Payment — A deferred payment (e.g. second tranche of settlement). Specify the year it occurs.

4.2 Revenue & Sales

• Total Lots — The number of lots to be developed and sold. You can use the Lot Calculator (click the calculator icon) to derive this from gross acres and a net developable hectares ratio.
• Retail Lot Price — GST-inclusive price per lot. The model strips GST automatically.
• Sales (lots/year) — Your assumed absorption rate. The model generates a year-by-year sales schedule which you can customise manually.
• Lots per Stage — The number of lots civil-worked and settled as one batch. Banks assess lending metrics per stage. Default is 45.
• Sales Commencement — The year in which the first lots settle (Year 1 = first year after land purchase).
• Capital Growth (% p.a.) — Annual escalation applied to revenue (lot prices grow over time).
• TPI / Construction (% p.a.) — Annual escalation applied to construction costs (tender price index).
• CPI / Statutory (% p.a.) — Annual escalation for statutory fees, professional fees, holding costs.

4.3 Sales Schedule

Below the main inputs, a year-by-year sales schedule is generated automatically based on your sales rate and commencement year. You can manually edit the number of lots sold each year — useful for modelling a ramp-up in early years or a tail-off at project end. The total must equal Total Lots; the model shows a running count to help you balance.

4.4 Development Costs

Costs can be entered in two modes:

• Blended mode (default) — Enter a single per-lot or total figure for each category: Construction (OPC), Development Charges, Professional/Statutory Fees, Other.
• Detail mode — Click the expand arrow on any cost section to enter sub-items (e.g. Road & Drainage, Sewerage, Water Supply under OPC; individual professional fee categories). Detail totals override blended inputs.

Cost categories include:

• OPC (On-site Physical Costs) — Civil construction costs. Can be entered per lot or expanded into internal and external sub-items.
• Dev Charges — Council and authority levies (development contributions, POS, augmentation charges, NBN).
• Professional Fees — Survey, engineering, landscape design, urban design, planning, traffic, geotech.
• Landscape — Streetscape (per lot) plus parks and playgrounds (lump sum).
• Major Works — Estate-level items: sales office, vision centre, entry statements, trunk infrastructure, contamination, fencing, community development.

4.5 Delivery & Financing

• Land LVR — Loan-to-value ratio for the land facility. Typically 50–65%. The bank lends this percentage of the purchase price as a land loan; the remainder is equity.
• Land Interest Rate — Annual interest rate on the land facility.
• Construction LVR — Loan-to-value ratio for the construction facility. Typically 60–75%.
• Construction Interest Rate — Annual interest rate on the construction facility.
• Release Fee / Clearance (%) — When lots settle, the bank requires accelerated paydown of the land loan. 110% means selling 10% of lots requires repaying 11% of the land debt. Typical range: 110–125%.

4.6 Fees, Contingencies & Other

• DM Fee (%) — Development Management fee as a % of gross revenue.
• Construction Contingency (%) — Applied to construction costs as a buffer for variations and overruns. Typically 5–10%.
• Project Contingency (%) — A broader contingency applied to total development cost (excluding land and stamp). Covers project-wide risks. Typically 0–5%.
• Conveyancing (per lot) — Legal costs per lot at settlement. Typically $1,000–$2,000.
• Agent Commission (%) — Sales commission as a % of net revenue (excl GST).
• Marketing (%) — Marketing costs as a % of gross revenue.
• Land Holding (%) — Annual holding costs (rates, insurance, maintenance) as a % of land value.
• Deposit on Exchange (%) — Buyer deposit collected ahead of settlement (default 10%).
• Lead Time (quarters) — How many quarters before settlement the deposit is received.
• Discount Rate (% p.a.) — Used for the NPV calculation. Represents your required rate of return.

4.7 Toggles & Options

• S-Curve Cost Distribution — When ticked, construction costs follow a 10/35/35/20 quarterly distribution (more realistic). When unticked, costs are split 50/50 across Q2–Q3 (simpler).
• Model GST Timing — When ticked, GST is modelled with quarterly timing (collected at settlement, remitted with BAS). When unticked, GST is stripped from revenue as a simple margin adjustment.
• Terminal Year — If set, escalation (capital growth and TPI) stops after this year. Useful for modelling a plateau in growth assumptions.

5. Understanding the Outputs

5.1 Hero Metrics Bar

The coloured bar at the top shows key outputs at a glance: Equity IRR, Dev Margin, Peak Debt, Peak Equity, Profit, RLV/Lot, TDC/Lot, NPV, and Breakeven (the year the project returns all invested equity).

5.2 Lending Metrics

Two live metrics are displayed in the Delivery & Financing panel:

• Stage LVR (Peak) — The worst-case LVR across all stages. Target ≤ 65%. Stages are determined by the Lots per Stage input.
• Stage LTC (Peak) — The worst-case LTC across all stages. Target ≤ 80%.

5.3 Development Summary

A comprehensive summary table showing total revenue, all cost line items, profit, and key return metrics. Toggle between Per Lot, Total, and $000s using the segmented control above the table.

5.4 Visual Dashboard

Four charts in a 2×2 grid:

• Cost Breakdown — Donut chart showing the composition of total development cost.
• Revenue to Profit Waterfall — Shows how gross revenue flows through each cost category down to profit.
• Annual Revenue, Expenses & Equity — Bar chart of yearly revenue and expenses with cumulative equity cashflow line.
• Health Indicators — Gauge bars showing project health across margin, IRR, LVR, and equity multiple metrics.

5.5 Cashflow Table

A detailed cashflow showing every line item by period. Toggle between Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly views. Toggle Finance: Included / Excluded to see the project with or without debt. Below the table is the Cashflow & Debt Profile chart.

5.6 Ownership View

If Ownership % is less than 100%, an Ownership section appears showing your proportional share of revenue, costs, and returns.

6. Goal Seek (RLV)

The Goal Seek section answers: “What is the maximum I can pay for the land and still achieve my target return?”

• Choose your solve method: Margin (target dev margin %) or IRR (target equity IRR %).
• Set your target hurdle rate (e.g. 20% margin or 15% IRR).
• Click Solve for Land Value. The model iterates to find the Residual Land Value (RLV).
• Compare the RLV per lot and total RLV to the asking price to assess if the deal works.

7. Sensitivity Analysis

Two side-by-side heatmap tables show how returns change when you vary one input:

• Retail Lot Price Sensitivity — RLV, IRR, margin, peak debt, and peak equity across a range of sale prices (±$30k in $5k steps).
• Development Cost (OPC) Sensitivity — Same metrics across a range of construction costs (±$15k in $5k steps).

Green shading = favourable; red = unfavourable. Your current input is marked with an arrow.

8. Peak Performance Band

Identifies the optimal price range where returns are maximised relative to the price you pay for the land. Charts show RLV per lot and Equity IRR across retail lot prices, highlighting the “sweet spot”.

A 2D heatmap shows how RLV and IRR change when both sale price and construction cost vary simultaneously.

9. Monte Carlo Simulation & Risk Analysis

Monte Carlo simulation stress-tests your feasibility by running thousands of scenarios with randomised inputs:

1. Select variables — Tick the variables you want to randomise. They are ranked by impact. Use the header checkbox to select/deselect all.
2. Set bands — “Low Band” and “High Band” define the range of random variation. Edit these to widen or narrow the spread.
3. Run simulation — Click the Run button. The model runs 2,000–20,000 randomised scenarios.
4. Review results — Four charts show distributions of Dev Margin, Equity IRR, Total Profit, and a Tornado chart. P10/P50/P90 percentiles are marked.

Compound Scenario (What-If)

The Compound Scenario Adjustment column lets you model a specific combined scenario. For example, set construction cost to +$3,000 and sale price to −$5,000 simultaneously. These adjustments only apply to the Compound Scenario, not the Monte Carlo random simulation. Click the Compound Scenario button to calculate results.

10. Saving & Exporting

• SAVE — Downloads the entire model as a self-contained HTML file with all inputs embedded. Open later to resume exactly where you left off.
• EXPORT (PDF) — Generates a PDF snapshot of the development summary, charts, and key metrics.
• Export Model XLSX — Generates a full Excel workbook with Inputs sheet, quarterly cashflow, sensitivity tables, and summary metrics.

11. Default Inputs Tab

Save your standard assumptions (interest rates, contingency rates, commission rates, etc.) to your browser’s local storage. When you start a new feasibility, click Load Defaults to pre-populate these common inputs, then only change the project-specific items. A comparison table shows which inputs differ from your saved defaults.

12. Key Metrics Reference

13. Things to Be Aware Of

• Quarterly timing — Q1–Q3 are construction/cost quarters, Q4 is the settlement quarter where revenue arrives and loans are repaid. This mirrors real Australian subdivision practice.
• Escalation — Revenue and costs escalate annually from Year 2. Set Capital Growth and TPI to 0% for flat assumptions.
• GST — Lot prices are entered GST-inclusive. The model strips GST using the margin scheme (1/11th). GST is a cashflow item, not a profit item.
• Finance modelling — Two separate facilities (land + construction). Interest accrues quarterly. Construction facility is fully repaid at each Q4 settlement.
• Data privacy — All calculations run in your browser. No data is sent to any server. Saved files are standard HTML that can be opened offline.
• Dark/Light mode — Click the theme toggle in the top bar to switch. Your preference is saved to local storage.
• Sensitivity tables — These show the RLV at your target hurdle for each price/cost variant, not at the current purchase price.

14. Quick Reference

• Press Enter in any input field to recalculate immediately.
• Yellow-highlighted inputs are the key project-specific fields you should set first.
• Grey-shaded inputs have sensible defaults — only change if you have project-specific data.
• Hover over the i info icons next to inputs for a quick explanation of what each field does.
• The model auto-adjusts the number of years to match your sales schedule. You don’t need to set this manually.