By completion of this course, successful learners will be able to:  

1. Identify various types of real estate assets suitable for development and understand the municipal approval process required to commence development.
2. Analyze and mitigate project-specific and macroeconomic risk factors impacting the viability of your project.
   
   
3. Compare and evaluate different equity capital structures used to finance real estate projects and their influence on securing project debt.
   
   
4. Develop a comprehensive project pro forma and cost estimate utilizing discounted cash flow analysis, IRR modeling, and time value of money assumptions.
   
   
5. Grasp the basic features of mortgage agreements, including first and second charges, and comprehend the legal framework supporting private financing transactions.
   
   
6. Assess the viability of potential real estate projects, determining their potential to secure project financing.
   
   
7. Create a pre-financing report using REDI’s framework for a case-study development or an alternative project of your choice.

Mark Seasons

Professor & Director, School of Planning — University of Waterloo 
Adjunct Instructor, REDI Canada

Mark Seasons is a Professor and the Director of the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo, which he joined in 1998 following almost 20 years in planning practice. He is a Fellow, Canadian Institute of Planners and a Registered Professional Planner (Ontario). Mark’s education includes a BA (Honours Geography – Queen’s); MEnvDes (Planning – Calgary); and PhD (Regional Planning – Waterloo).

Mark has practiced as an urban planner with the City of Calgary, the New Zealand federal government, the Province of Ontario, and the Canadian federal government’s National Capital Commission. Throughout his professional career, he has worked in the areas of urban renewal, long-range planning, neighbourhood revitalization, regional planning, and non-profit housing.

Mark’s research interests include plan evaluation, planning for climate change, strategic planning, and planning for slow-growth or declining cities. He has designed and delivered courses in land use planning, research methods, planning theory, program evaluation and regional planning.

As a researcher, Mark has written and had published numerous articles in a variety of peer-reviewed journals. He’s also a member of the editorial boards of several academic journals for which he regularly reviews and evaluates articles that are submitted for publication. Mark was editor-in-chief of Plan Canada, the Canadian Institute of Planning’s practice-oriented journal, from 2005-10. In 2021, he published a sole-authored and peer-reviewed text on plan monitoring and evaluation (Evaluating Urban and Regional Plans: From Theory to Practice, UBC Press).