I often have chats with aspiring developers. What I have not done previously is really break out the time and effort to show what it takes to launch a project. I posted somewhere recently that I spent $92000 on pre construction related services. This is the design, engineering, fees, levies, improvements, consultants, and everything else that goes into a townhouse project. The $92000 is a significant sum, yes, and hurt me deeply to pay it, despite my apparently deep pockets and relative immunity and lack of surprise at all the little bits and what they add up to. What was truly agonizing was the time and energy amounting to a serious level of brain damage to get it done. The opportunity cost is a real factor. I could have invested $92000 elsewhere into a dividend paying stock, or spent it on the family and took a year off to travel around the world. I won’t even pay myself $92000 this year, yet I somehow can find a way to pay that large sum into the economy to the benefit of everyone else on the receiving end. The townhouse project is a fairly risky endeavour, if you know how to do it. If you don’t, you are really taking on something that could cause a lot of harm. I also estimated about 250 hours of my time deployed into the project, this is uncompensated expertise that is needed. Everyone else involved in the project has their hand out for significant wages or tolls, and they set their rates. My rate continues to be zero. Had I needed more help, that 92000 would have been far more, or the outcome of what we permitted, far worse. I think the cost of these small townhouse projects is really quite a burden relative to the lack of scale. It is not going to be viable to pursue the townhouse project with such a small number of units for many builders, unless they can swallow a year of planning work and a year of project management without the possibility to draw a wage. Despite all of this whining, I like the townhouse model of development, but a new developer is going to really want to do it it badly to find any success. Typically I tell new developers not to do it. Just find a small lot and build a single house, or do a renovation. That is plenty complex and risky without getting in deep in a multi family project.