Most of the international recognised commercial property consultacies have a presence in either Cardiff or Bristol.Whilst I am not prescriptive as to the chosen site location you might want to select a site here in Wales which you can more readily identify with but I will have no objection should you select a geographical location elsewhere in the UK$.$However selecting a site outside Wales,England and Scotland should be avoided as it throws up planning and other valuation issues that could be problematic.The above mentioned firms of Surveyors$/$Property consultancies will be the source of your selected sites and lists are available on the internet.

Each company will have its own website format but most if not all will have a tab for properties available for sale,and crucially a sub tab for development sites.There will be some core information on the agents$$ sales particulars.Please include a copy of this document in your appendix.Frequently the agents will include some basic information regarding likely planning consents that may be forthcoming as well as a price guide.

Two government health warnings here.Firstly always bear in mind that selling agents are instructed to achieve the highest possible price for their client,the vendors.Whilst all agents are bound by the Misrepresentation Act $1969$ and cannot make false$/$misleading or fraudulent claims regarding the properties which they market,nevertheless they are often prone to over optimism in their statements and cover themselves by declaring that purchasers should make their own enquiries upon issues like planning and use zoning.Whilst I am clearly not expecting you to carry out formal searches of the Planning Authority Registers$[$although this does not preclude the diligent student from referencing the relevant Local Plan$]$ I would be looking for some explanation as to why you have made certain assumptions on development site use.

Secondly agents will clearly want to steer purchasers to as high an offer figure as possible.Phrases such as $$Offers in the region of x$$;Offers in excess of y$$ are commonplace;Whilst this may give you a steer it could just as easily mislead you.Ultimately I would wish to see your figure arrived at by your own independent analysis using the residual valuation skills that$[$hopefully$]$ you have garnered on this module.

Planning is of course more than just about land use designation.It regulates issues such as site density,site coverage,density,height of buildings,design parameters,car parking provision etc.Whilst I am not expecting war and peace on this front,I would expect some well reasoned commentary regarding your assumptions upon such matters.

Once you have selected your site and established the most likely optimum development and whilst I am more than happy to entertain mixed use developments you might want to make your lives simpler by restricting to one or two uses only. eg residential$/$retail ;or retail$/$offices etc.

There are a few other things that you will need to research before you can launch into preparing your residual valuation$[$please see handout worked examples for template $-$pages $93-95$ extract from Property Development$[$Reed and Sims$].$The residual valuation will be included in your appendix.For ease of reference to sections$/$figures within the valuation you may wish to include annotations.

You will need to ascertain the Estimated Rental Values $.$No detailed rental comparables required here.Just reference to broad parameters by way of $$x per sq ft$/$sq m$.$

Remember that Net Lettable Area for Gross Development Value calculation is different from Gross External Area for Building Costs.You may adopt the $\%$ figures for professional fees as per the handout although try and avoid slavish replication.but clearly other costs,including crucially finance costs,I would expect some explanation$/$justification$.$

Try and select a freehold site$[$most development sites are offered freehold$]$ as this will make the capitalisation process easier for you and will not require your accessing valuation tables.Thus if your discount rate$/$capitalisation rate is $8\%$ then $100/8$ provides a YP multiplier of $12\mathrm{.}5$ for example.Some commentary on your adopted rate welcomed.

As far as building costs are concerned you may use printed quarterly schedules$[$eg Spons$]$ or other as appropriate.Please specify your source.

You have been asked to provide commentary on the elasticity of the project and a sensitivity analysis.The client$[$ie Moi$]$ is therefore expecting your thoughts on upsides and downsides highlighting the more likely risk items based on your sensitivity analysis.What if interest rates go up by say $2\%$ or $5\%$ or $8\%?$ What if build costs increase by $10\%$ or $15\%$ for example?

Moving on to layout or format of your report.I shall not be unduly prescriptive here to allow for individual creativity and also recognising that most surveying have their own bespoke report format.

Notwithstanding this I think many of you would find it useful to have a broad template