I am in my late 20s and educated in accounting but haven’t been able to accrue a lot of steady work experience post 2020. I’ve always been interested in architecture and property development: seeing an under utilized property or empty lot and saying to myself, “This is what the city should do with this empty plot downtown. This is what is needed here and I would build it if I had money.” The problem is that I don’t have money. I don’t know how to seek funding. I have this great idea in my city for a mall to use an empty parking lot to build a tall apartment building next to a large urban forest and park. All the units would be located one side of the building with individual balconies so all tenants could look over the woods and watch them change color and form during the seasons. There truly is no remotely similar view in my city or much of the US, in my estimation.

I want to reach out to the mall owner and pitch this idea with enough details to show that I have thought about how they have a huge empty auxiliary parking lot in their mall complex which earns them no revenue. This mixed–use primarily apartment-housing idea would diversify their income and create a separate income stream not related to retail. I want to show them how I imagine the facade of the building to use colored glass to mimic the colors of a forest and autumn leaves. I want them to know that the building would really be a compliment of the forest it overlooks and how the forest is actually the main character in this story.

I truly feel like I have unique ideas that focus on filling in instead of building out a city further and further, but how do you even pitch ideas without a reasonable certainty that they won’t just steal the idea and cut you out? What do you even call a person like me who thinks up these (some would say ridiculous) ideas for housing and retail and recreation???

Long story short, I have a raw land lot on the corner of 59th ave and Maryland Ave… I want to develop this into a food truck lot with permanent covered seating, bathroom, lights, and pads where the food trucks can lease spaces to set up.

The city is currently giving me a hard time for “the primary use being undefined”. She claims that there must be a restaurant, or other primary use of the buildings, or else they wouldn’t allow buildings to support “temporary uses”… although I vividly explained that the pads are leased spaces and not just “come and go” pads.

Any suggestions? Zoning is C2

Hey everyone, I’m a newer real estate agent with Keller Williams and currently in my last year of college. I’m planning to go full-time soon and would really appreciate some guidance from those with more experience.

I do have a mentor for my first few deals, but I haven’t closed one yet. I’ve come close with a few condos and rentals, but they ended up falling through. I’ve also helped out at a couple open houses and now want to start hosting my own.

Right now I’ve been handing out business cards, posting flyers around my city, leveraging friends/family, and staying active on social media.

A few things I’d love advice on:

Is it normal to not have closed a deal yet at this stage?

What should I be focusing on daily to generate real leads?

Are open houses a good way to build momentum starting out?

Should I start door knocking, or focus elsewhere first?

For cold calling—how are you finding people to call? Are expired listings and FSBOs still effective, and where are you sourcing those leads?

I’m really motivated and feel like I might be missing something I could already be doing. Any advice, strategies, or even mistakes to avoid would mean a lot. Thanks in advance.

I'm graduating from UCLA soon with a degree in political science. My whole plan was to become a lawyer, but I always deep down wanted to do something with design and architecture. This year I changed everything in my career path, and wanted to follow my passion and pursue a job that involves design. I looked into real estate development, and it sounds very interesting, working with architects and making projects, it also pays way more than an architecture job, which is what discourages me from pursuing architecture. My question is, can I be a real estate developer and make design decisions, or do I design as a real estate developer? How is it like?

I’m 24 and have spent the past two years working in civil engineering, but I haven’t found it to be a great fit. I graduated with a degree in architecture and had internship experience in that field, but chose not to pursue a master’s (due to that being an expectation for licensure), which led me into civil engineering instead. At this point, I’m running into a ceiling since I’m not eligible for a PE license with my background.

More importantly, I don’t enjoy the day-to-day work. My current role is very CAD-heavy, while my strengths are more client-facing—coordinating projects, leading meetings, and working with people.

Long-term, my goal is to become a home builder and develop custom homes. I know that’s not something I can realistically jump into yet, especially in a high-cost area, so I’m trying to be strategic about my next step.

Given my background in architecture and civil engineering, what roles in real estate development would make the most sense for me to target right now? I would love a role that would give me experience I can use later on as a developer, and I’m particularly interested in positions that are more people-oriented.

Also, would pursuing something like an MRED or MBA be worth it at this stage? or is it better to focus on gaining experience? I obviously have relatively limited experience on the financial side, but will do what I need to obtain that experience.

I was always passionate about real estate, my friends and I challenged ourselves to build a tool to help people who wants short term investment or long term investment properties.

We thought about (and tried) making this a business but decided its more fun to get great feedback from users who love playing around and learning from it.

I want to understand what are the best practices to employ someone on a freelance basis for general office work, project scheduling, cost accounting.

We are a small size electrical contractor (~$5M Revenue) based in FL and would like to explore options to save some costs.

Any help / leads will be appreciated.

I am a contractor and this will be my first property I work on. I’m looking to dip my toes in the developers pool.

I’m looking for a property I could buy and fix up/build to make some profit only in Staten Island.

Anything beaten down, empty lot, a house that looks like it doesn’t fit on the block.

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