Development Services Manager | Residential Development

This is one of Australia’s most active residential development businesses, with around 7,500 lots in the pipeline across New South Wales and Queensland and plenty more growth ahead. Over the past several years, your new employer has quietly built a substantial portfolio of masterplanned communities across regional NSW and Queensland.

The land is there, the projects are there and the construction capability is in place. Sales volumes were around 400 lots last year and are expected to grow towards 600 annually over the next three years, so the next stage is very much about making the most of the platform that has already been built.

Culture is just as important as capability here. This is a founder-led environment where senior leaders stay close to the detail, roll their sleeves up and take ownership.

With a portfolio and growth of this scale, there is a lot of commercial information moving across the business at any one time, from feasibilities, forecasts and margins through to tenders, construction costs and project performance. Much of that currently sits across Development, Construction, Finance, Sales and Marketing, and this newly created role is about bringing it together and giving the business a much clearer view of how the portfolio is performing.

Reporting directly to the General Manager of Residential Real Estate and sitting within the Residential Senior Leadership Team, you will build the systems, processes, commercial framework and team that give the business better visibility across feasibility, tendering, cost, forecasting and margin. The goal is not to create more process, it is to spot where things are moving early, understand why, and give the business the information it needs to make the right commercial call.

What you will be doing

• Bring together feasibility, tender, forecast and actual cost information across the portfolio
• Track cost-to-complete, cash flow, margin and overall project performance
• Review and challenge tenders, variations, forecasts and development assumptions
• Identify where projects are starting to move off plan and get underneath why
• Establish more consistent cost control, reporting and approval processes
• Turn commercial information into clear recommendations for the leadership team
• Improve the systems and processes supporting a growing residential portfolio
• Build and lead a multidisciplinary team across development analysis, estimating, systems, coordination and project accounts

The Development Managers will continue to drive the projects forward. This role is about making sure the commercial position behind those projects stacks up.

About you

There are a couple of ways someone could be right for this.

It could be a Development Manager or Senior Development Manager from residential land development or masterplanned communities who has always been particularly strong commercially. Someone who understands feasibility, civil and construction costs, tenders, forecasting and margin because they have actually delivered developments. For that person, this could be the step from running individual projects to influencing an entire portfolio.

Or it could be a Commercial Manager, Development Finance Manager with serious financial and analytical capability, combined with enough property development experience to understand what sits behind the numbers.

Ideally, that will come with:

• 10+ years across property development, construction, infrastructure or commercial management
• Senior development, commercial or business leadership experience
• Strong feasibility, budgeting, forecasting and commercial reporting capability
• An understanding of project economics and investment fundamentals
• Experience leading and developing teams
• Strong systems and process improvement capability
• The confidence to challenge assumptions when something does not stack up

For more info, reach out to Nadene Barretto on 0432 124***, ******@eightrecruitment.com.au

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