Real Estate Development-Enhancing Decision Making Process

Real estate forms, to many developed counties, a backbone of the economy and the major investment for most businesses and households. The real estate market is one of the most volatile sectors of the economy, and its inevitable cycles mean that successful completion of project depends on proper preparation for opportunities and challenges.Real estate projects have high rate of capital return and profit margin but yet are financially risk undertaking. Selecting the right investment is so of paramount importance. In mis sense, real estate investors need a clear approach that they can employ to justify their decision is reasonable.In order to select and justify real estate investment decision, the decision must first be understood. The basic question in understanding a real decision is: Why was the investment decision made? In answering this question, the criteria, or factors, used in proposing, evaluating, and deciding on the investment must be identified, In addition, the linkage of these factors to other organization factors or objectives forms the backdrop for understanding real estate investment decisions.With the development of economy real estate registers more entrepreneurs who seek for investment opportunity. However, some of them fail to secure their capital due to unreasonable decision for their investment. It has been learnt that most decisions investors had ever made rely heavily on experience they had acquired earlier. But what about the new entrepreneurs? Is there a base mat they can use to justify their decision and get rid of the risks prone to real estate projects?This research project has come into being in order to facilitate the decision making in real estate developments. Focusing on the pre-development stage, the study explores the factors that affect the decision and how they are related to each other. Their contribution to the decision in terms of relative significance is also valued. The environment that governs decision making does greatly dictate the final results, hence was included understudy. The research end up with finding a suitable model among many others that can assist the decision process.Literature review and field survey were both used to acquire basic information and data to be used in analysis. Questionnaire as a favorable research tool by researchers backed by focus group interviews were used to collect views from thirty different real estate companies located in study area.The study showed that the use of systematic tools and scientific procedures in decision making will, by far enhance decision and eliminate the risks of project failure. A total of ten (10) factors were identified as influencing decision but only five (S) of them mentioned as very important and hence considered in their decision making. They are target customers/price & affordability, government influence, competition from other developers, site location and attributes, finance capital and return. A decision tree was found to be a suitable companion for investors during the course of their decision.