Development Pm interview prep.

Behavioural questions to expect

1. Walk me through your CV.
2. Tell me about a project you've led or significantly contributed to.
3. Why real estate development - vs acquisitions, brokerage, banking, or construction management?
4. Why this product type and market - multifamily / industrial / life-science / mixed-use + this MSA?
5. Why the firm?
6. What's your read on our portfolio and market position?
7. Tell me what you understand about our capital strategy and partners.
8. Walk me through a deal you've worked on end-to-end - site identification through stabilisation or exit.

Technical concepts to master

• Development capital stack

  LP equity (limited partner / institutional capital) · GP equity + co-invest · Construction loan · Mezzanine + preferred equity · Permanent / agency take-out debt

• Waterfall + promote mechanics

  Return of capital · Preferred return (pref) · GP catch-up · Promote / carried interest · Clawback + lookback

• Entitlements + zoning vocabulary

  Zoning + by-right vs discretionary · PUD / Planned Unit Development · Variance + CUP (Conditional Use Permit) · Environmental review - EIR / CEQA / NEPA · Inclusionary zoning + affordable set-aside

• Pro-forma + yield-on-cost

  Pro-forma NOI build · Total development cost (TDC) · Untrended vs trended yield-on-cost · Residual cap + exit value · Sensitivity flexing

Practical drills

• You're underwriting a 200-unit multifamily development. TDC is $80M ($400K per unit all-in). Stabilised Year-1 NOI is $5.2M. You expect to sell at a 5.0% cap rate after a 4-year hold. Construction debt is $52M (65% LTC) at 6.5%, with $28M of equity. What's untrended yield-on-cost, residual value, and rough project-level equity multiple?
• A 350-unit Class-A multifamily site in a Sun Belt MSA. Land basis $20M. Hard costs $180/sq ft on 350K rentable sq ft = $63M. Soft costs 12% of hard = $7.5M. Construction interest + lease-up reserve $4.5M. Contingency 5% = $5M. Market rents support $2.10/sq ft/month at stabilisation; expense ratio 38%. Market exit cap 5.25%. Walk through how you'd build the underwrite + capital stack + structure the deal.
• You're 18 months into a planned 24-month construction schedule on a 250-unit mixed-use project. Two issues hit in the same week: (1) the GC notifies you that the steel package is $4M over budget due to tariff-driven price increases, (2) the planning department requires an additional traffic study that adds 3 months to your TCO timeline because of a neighbour complaint. Walk through your response.

Smart-question anchors

• Pipeline + product mix - operating + under-construction + entitlements + dirt by product type
• Recent milestones - groundbreakings, deliveries, stabilisations, refis, dispositions in last 12-24 months
• Capital partners - LP equity sources, construction lender + agency relationships, JV structure
• Return profile + risk posture - core-plus / value-add / opportunistic / merchant build-to-sell vs hold
• Vertical integration - in-house GC, design, property management, leasing or third-party

Sourced from

Urban Land Institute (ULI) Real Estate Development handbook + case studies · Adventures in CRE + Break Into CRE interview guides · Wall Street Oasis (WSO) Real Estate forum + REPE interview guide · CCIM Institute + Argus Enterprise training materials · PERE + Real Capital Analytics (RCA) + Green Street market data