Opportunity assessment comes first
Before any financial model, the opportunity itself is assessed: is there real demand for this use, in this location, at this scale, within this time window? Assessment answers whether the question is worth modelling at all — and it is the cheapest place to say no.
Market research is field work
Reliable research combines transaction data with what the market is actually doing: what is selling, at what pace, to whom, and why buyers walked away from the nearest alternative. Aggregated averages describe a city; a development is decided at the level of a corridor and a segment.
- Segment demand before sizing it.
- Test absorption assumptions against comparable launches, not ambitions.
- State clearly which numbers are evidence and which are inference.
Assumptions are the real output
Two studies can reach the same return with entirely different risk. What matters is the assumption set: pricing, pace, cost, timing and exit. Writing them down — visibly, with their source — lets a board revisit a decision later without re-arguing it from scratch.
Sensitivity is not a formality either. A development that only works at one price and one pace is not an opportunity; it is a bet.
From study to decision
The study ends when a decision is made and its conditions are recorded: what we believed, what would change our mind, and who reviews it. That is the difference between analysis that guides a development and analysis that decorates a file.
Practical Takeaways
- Assess the opportunity before modelling it.
- Decide at the level of corridor and segment, not city averages.
- Document assumptions and their sources; they outlive the model.
- A study that cannot survive sensitivity is a bet, not a decision.
About Mohammed
Board Member & Head of Sales and Marketing Sector at Waheej Real Estate, working across marketing and sales leadership, investment and opportunity assessment, product development, pricing, feasibility and market research — pairing executive governance with market insight, Artificial Intelligence and PropTech.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia