One lucky person will win a $4,500 Site Evaluation Report for free.

That’s right. If you win the FREE Site Evaluation Report, myself and my partners will go through the due diligence checklist, conduct research, and create a due diligence report for a property of your choosing. And we will do it at no charge. Completely free.

Win a report for you project that looks like the free Site Evaluation Report we give away on the website. (Our clients pay us several thousands dollars to tens of thousands of dollars to perform Land Development Evaluations on their projects, so this is a pretty valuable grand prize. On average I would say this prize is worth $4,500)

Why am I doing this? Well, the other day I received an email from a member of the site saying,

“Property Development Source is the best land development resource on the web that nobody knows about – you should run a contest or something to get the word out.”

And I agree. So I am giving away thousands of dollars worth of our services in the form of a Site Evaluation Report as the grand prize in order to spread the news about our website.

But I am not going to stop there. I am also going to give away a runner up prize - an hour of my time. That hour can be spent on the phone with me answering questions or strategizing, doing research for you, or simply providing feedback on a project you are working on – it is up to you.

The way to enter for a chance to win a $4,500 Site Evaluation Report is simple. Nearly every blog post on our website has two little buttons down at the bottom of the article (Share This & Bookmark.) Those buttons allow you the reader to “social bookmark” a post to any of the major bookmarking and social websites.

Social bookmarking is a great way to get the word out about Property Development Source.com

So all you need to do to enter the contest is pick your favorite blog post or video on the website and use one of those buttons at the bottom to “bookmark” the post. Doesn’t matter what bookmarking or social site you use, just make sure you give the bookmark a proper title, description, and tags where possible.

Once you have done that simply send an email to bart@propertydevelopmentsource.com with subject heading: contest entry. In the body of the email tell me which blog post you submitted, what bookmarking or social site you submitted it to, and what your username is on that bookmarking or social site. (This will allow me to verify your entry.)

That is it. It’s that simple, takes less than 10 seconds, and your done. Should be fun.

Enter multiple times: For each blog post you bookmark and each social website you use, you can submit a new contest entry. (Limit 10 entries per person.)

To find out how you can get an additional 90 entries into the contest to win a $4,500 Due Diligence Report, please see the FAQ below.

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Otherwise, go to your favorite blog post now and start entering the contest! Good Luck.

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If entering sounds confusing, here’s a video to show you just how easy it is.

F.A.Q.

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What if I try submitting a blog post to a social site and the post has already been submitted?
Most social bookmarking sites allow you to “digg” or “vote” for a post that is already submitted. Simply vote for the existing submission and send me an email telling me about and you will be entered. No problem.

How many times can I enter?
You are allowed to enter the contest by social bookmarking blog posts up to ten times to increase your odds of winning the grand prize. (But there are other ways to enter as well.)

What are the other ways to enter?
1) a few of the videos on PropertyDevelopmentSource.com can be found on video websites like revver.com, livevideo.com, and Google Video and youtube. Go to those video websites and social bookmark the PropertyDevelopmentSource videos you find there. Send me an email just like you would do above and explain what you have done and it will be another contest entry (Limit 10)
2) If you have a website you can get 10 contest entries in one easy step. Simply write at least a 3 line description about PropertyDevelopmentSource.com on your website and include a link to our site in the description. (Links can be to the main web url or to a particular blog post – it doesn’t matter they just need to be working links and can’t be “no follow”.) Send an email to bart@propertydevelopmentsource.com with the subject heading: contest entry and give the url of where the link is located and your done. 10 chances to win will be yours.

When does the contest end?
I will draw the winners on my birthday, April 2nd and announce the winners the next day.

I don’t have a project right now, how long do I have to use the prize?
You can claim your prize at any time in 2008. Simply send us the property description by December 31, 2008 and we will get started on your report.

For the official contest rules, go here.

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As a developer, you are required to make hundreds of choices over the course of a development project. From what architect to hire, to how much to spend on landscaping, to what price to sell your end product, the developer makes countless decisions every step of the way.

The stress of these decisions can build up fast. One thing that may help you eliminate some of the stress, clear your head and help you make better choices is to understand what you are really doing when you make these decisions – choosing whether to buy down risk or not.

A story will help explain this better:

A few years ago, my father was developing a subdivision of single family homes. They were in the very early stages of the project and he had hired a geotechnical firm to take some soil borings for use in designing the roads and the storm water detention pond for the project.

The geotechnical firm had put together a proposal for the bare minimum of soil borings – a few for the road and just one for the detention pond. The price was right and so my father gave them the go ahead.

The geotech firm conducted the soil analysis and found sand or sand with traces of clay from the top soil to down well below the water table.

No surprise there as sand is common throughout most of Florida. So the engineer went about designing the road and stormwater pond for sandy soils and the project moved ahead as planned.

It wasn’t until they were nearing the end of construction that problems started showing up with the stormwater pond. The engineer had designed a dry pond for the subdivision. (A dry pond has no water in it except during storm events where it fills up with water and then the water percolates into the ground over time. Usually within 3 days the pond should be dry again.)

Well, the subdivision had experienced a good rain storm about a week prior and the pond was still full of water. It hadn’t drained like it should have. Then another rain storm came and the pond was overflowing and water was flooding some of the new lots.

Quickly my father was on the phone with his engineer. And shortly after the engineer visited the site, he was on the phone with the geotech firm.

Long story short – the geotech firm ended up taking some more soil borings and discovering that the pond had been located over a significant layer of clay soils. The initial, single boring in the pond area had just missed it.

The stormwater pond had to be redesigned and reconstructed resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs and project delays.

Looking back, my father realized that he had made a poor decision when choosing to go with the bare bones geotech analysis that was proposed.

He had subconsciously made the decision to take on more risk for the hope of increased profit. If he had taken the time to consciously look at that decision as one about risk, he would have made a different choice.

You see the majority of costs for hiring a geotechnical analysis is in the mobilization of the equipment. Once you have paid to get the boring equipment to your project site, the cost of an extra soil boring or two is minimal - usually a few hundred dollars.

The risk my father chose to take was a significantly greater uncertainty about the geotechnical features of the property. And he exchanged that risk for the chance of only a few hundred dollars extra in profits.

If only he had looked at the decision from the standpoint of risk, he would have seen the bargain in paying only a few hundred dollars to buy down his risk significantly.

He learned the lesson the hard way. Hopefully, you won’t have to.

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The feedback I have been getting via emails lately has been great - lots of great questions.

What is most exciting is some of you have written with actual property information and requests for help with analysis and development planning. My partners and I are trying to set aside as much time as we can to help those who write in or submit comments. It’s really a win-win. You get help with an actual project and we get a better understanding of what areas people new to property development are most in need of assistance. So keep ‘em coming.

One question we have received multiple times is a request for financial software or spreadsheets.

In response, I have cleaned up a spreadsheet that I use personally for property development analysis.

The spreadsheet certainly isn’t the most complicated one I have, but it is better than many I have seen. I think it works great for many standard development projects and I think once you see it you will agree.

I am including the spreadsheet with THE BIG 6 report.

Go here to learn more about that great report and get your hands on the spreadsheet.

THE BIG 6: Answers to Developer’s Top Questions that Hinder Success
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