Property Development

[Lanesra]

I am a first year uni student and would love to go into property development but where do I begin?

Any advice?

[bednobs]

ummm, buy a property then develop it? sounds like a good start to me

[cassa333]

Sounds like a plan bednobs.

Mind you, how the average student can afford to buy prioperty when tuition fees are so high is beyond me !

[boxtops]

duplicate post http://www.theanswerb...y/Question997741.html

[Twenty20]

I remember, back in the old days, when students claimed they were poor and people believed them.

Nowadays, we have university students asking advice on purchasing property and property development. There were posts in the Motoring section about a month ago where a student was complaining because there was nowhere to park her car that she drove to university. Then there's all the students doing trips around the world to India, Thailand, Australia etc etc during their holidays and gap years. Amazing.

Poor students? Complaining about tuition fees? Don't make me laugh.

[Lanesra]

I think a lot of you have got the wrong end of the stick - I was planning my student loan at all. I want to go into property development as a career after I've graduated. I definitely cannot afford to buy property now. The reason I asked this question is because at uni you are always told to think about your career options early and perhaps how to get into them - so I was just asking for advice. It isn't as thought there are many property development companies recruiting students from campuses (or at least I haven't heard of this happening).

[PipinHull]

I used to work for two property developers (built commercial stuff like retail parks). They were both chartered surveyors by trade, degrees in something like economics. What course are you doing? Property development is very varied. I'm not sure it's really a good time to be going into it but they made a lot of money about a decade ago. I could never work out what they actually did though because they didn't design (architects did that), find land (agents did that) or build (construction did that). They just seemed to pull it all together and make 15%!

[Lanesra]

Thank you so much for your answer Pipinhull!! I'm studying Economics and Politics . I think property developers are the ones who bring everything together and finance the whole project. I just love the whole idea of buting and doing up propeties. Are there any companies that to you aware of that I could look into? Do I have to start doing this on my own?

[dr b]

This site seems useful (despite the fact that there aren't likely many jobs in property development available in Ireland right now):

http://gradireland.co.../property-career-faqs

[PipinHull]

If you are interesting in fairly small-scale property development (you say buying and doing up properties) then I would argue that it doesn't make much of a difference what degree etc you do, in fact you'd be best off saving up and doing as Bednobs suggests. If you are looking into it on a larger scale (new builds, commerical development) then you need some skills or experience that others don't have - if you cannot build, design or put up the finance then really you'd be doing the bit that everyone wants to do (standing around telling others what to do!). If you just want to do up properties then I don't think you'd find many companies that would offer you a job doing that, unless you brought considerable skills as before. Ask you careers adviser too at uni.

[Lanesra]

Thank you so much pipinhull! So if I wanted to go into the area of new builds and commerical development, what companies should I research? Just so that I know what I'm dealing with.

[Lanesra]

Thanks dr b!! I'm having a good look at that site and it's been helpful so far!