Real Estate Finance & Economics: A guide to securing finance for Real Estate Project Development in Developed and Emerging Economies

Finance is essential to the real estate project development sector’s success. However, there is still an enormous gap in the real estate sector. What seems to be required is a model that could guide managers in securing real estate project development finance. Findings have shown that no comprehensive framework is presently available that guides managers involved with securing finance for real estate project development. This study aims to develop a tool kit to support real estate managers in securing real estate project development finance. This toolkit would enhance access to finance by ensuring that managers understand the different finance options and criteria required by the different financiers. The toolkit would provide a framework for environmental scan, which would help minimise the challenges associated with securing real estate project development finance. It would also enable managers to take advantage of available opportunities and understand the critical success factors to facilitate access to finance for project development. It would allow an understanding of the vital decisions and processes; the skills, knowledge, competences, career path, education and training to enable access to finance for real estate project development. This research adopted a pluralistic methodological approach by employing qualitative and quantitative research designs focused on a case study of three developed and emerging economies, respectively. Using random sampling and snowballing, an online questionnaire survey was administered to real estate project development managers in developed and emerging economies, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, China, Nigeria, and South Africa. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data, while the online questionnaire survey was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The research revealed various challenges are associated with securing finance for real estate project development in both developed and emerging economies; however, the dominant challenges common to managers in both economies are access to land, collateral, and rising interest rates. This study developed a toolkit for securing finance for real estate project development. The toolkit is to support real estate managers in securing finance for real estate project development and serve as a guide in training and education for both academia and the industry.