leveraging design to play the market

The property development market is a game - literally.

A market has rules, goals, challenges, players and opportunities.

As with any game, negotiating its rules and capitalising on your strengths is how you play to win.

You don't control the game. But you can understand its conditions, anticipate how other players might behave, identify opportunities and make moves intended to enhance your position within it.

The goal is clear: for the asset to outperform. The rules are less so.

Yet in property development, we often talk about “the market” as though it were weather: something external to forecast, respond to and protect ourselves against.

“The market wants…”

“The market won’t accept…”

“The market expects…”

But who exactly is “the market”?

Occupiers? Competitors? Agents? Comparables? Vibes?

Are we always catering to what the market really wants, or are we sometimes perpetuating our own perceptions of what it wants through the choices we make?

Because who set those expectations in the first place, and why? And are they set in stone?

The market is the game. Leverage design to play it.