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Ask any real estate developer what keeps them awake at night, and they'll likely point to one thing: the deals that got away.
You know the drill—those near-misses. The sites you invested weeks or even months exploring. You pulled in your design team, finance ran multiple pro formas, general contractors gave rough estimates, and maybe you even drafted a letter of intent.
But then, suddenly, the deal died. Seller hesitation, zoning issues, or finances falling short—it doesn't matter why; it still stings.
That pain you feel? That’s the constant cost of pursuit.
The Hidden Cost of Site Pursuits
Historically, site pursuits have been expensive gambles, demanding:
- Endless PDFs and rough studies
- Back-and-forth emails with spreadsheets
- Waiting days or weeks for consultant feedback
- And endless hoping your initial assumptions hold true
When a deal falls through, that valuable time and money vanish into thin air.
Nobody enjoys tracking or defending pursuit costs, yet they're unavoidable.
A New Way Forward: Predictable, Scalable, Recoverable
But today’s smartest teams are shifting their mindset. They're no longer asking how to avoid pursuit costs—they're asking how to streamline and justify them. Enter a simpler, transparent approach: charging a flat fee per site.
Consider this example:
- You invest $800 per site using TestFit to explore feasibility.
- On average, you assess 10 sites to identify one winner.
- Your total pursuit cost: just $8,000.
Fold that expense neatly into your project's soft costs. Against a typical $50 million industrial project, $8,000 is just 0.016%—a rounding error. And for that tiny fraction, your team gains real-time feasibility studies, instant yield analysis, and critical alignment across acquisitions, design, finance, and construction.
The Real Cost is Always the Manual Process
The truth is, tools are cheap compared to manual hours. Traditionally, the real drain comes from the fragmented, wasted efforts across teams:
- Acquisitions aligning with potential yields
- Finance stress-testing the numbers
- Construction vetting cost assumptions
- Design teams validating codes and access
- Navigating complex zoning and building code
These silos slow you down, ballooning your soft costs.
Real estate feasibility platform like TestFit changes that paradigm. Your entire deal team can collaborate seamlessly, iterating and aligning rapidly without bottlenecks or gatekeeping. Everyone works smarter, faster, and at no extra cost.
Optimize Cost of Chasing for Cost of Winning
Let's face reality: pursuit costs will never disappear entirely—and they shouldn't. Because every successful deal is built upon lessons learned from sites that didn't pan out.
But you can radically reduce the burden by making your pursuit process smarter, more collaborative, and more cost-effective. Tools like TestFit transform the "cost of chasing" into the strategic "cost of winning." With the right approach, each pursuit is a valuable step toward your next successful deal.
