How much does it cost per day to carry a piece of land?

Price times your cost of capital, divided by 365. At 8.5% that is about 2,305 dollars a day on 9.9 million dollars, 1,430 on 6.14 million and 1,346 on 5.78 million. If 60% of the 9.9 million is borrowed at that rate, it is 1,383 dollars a day. Substitute your own price and rate.

How many days does a land go/no-go decision take?

Titleman has not measured the whole calendar, from first look to a decision, and names no number of days for it. It measured the desk feasibility run: a median of 27.2 minutes across the 80 runs that finished in the 30 days to 11 October 2026. The documents that come from outside, such as a zoning letter or a contractor's price, were not timed.

Do I pay carry while the land is still under contract?

Usually not on the price: the money is not spent until closing, apart from a deposit. What a delay can cost is an extension fee, a deposit that goes hard, or the expiry of the option. The terms are in your contract, and Titleman holds none of them.

What does it cost to lose a land option?

It costs the site, and the margin the project would have earned on it. Titleman holds no figure for either and prints none. Your own residual land value at more than one build cost shows what the site was worth to you.

Can software shorten a land go/no-go?

It shortens the desk step: zoning read one rule at a time, schemes tested, residual land value at more than one cost, and a list of what could not be established. It does not shorten a zoning letter, a title search or a contractor's price. Order those first and run the desk study while they are in the mail.

How do I work out what a month of delay costs on my site?

Take the land price and your cost of capital, multiply, divide by 365 and multiply by the days of delay. Add any option extension fee from your contract. Then state separately what you would lose if the site went to someone else: that is a judgment, not a formula.

Does a feasibility study replace my appraiser, attorney or contractor?

No. It is a screen. The appraisal, the title search, the zoning verification letter and the contractor's budget stay with licensed professionals, and the decision to go or not stays with the developer.

Answer

What Does a Month of Delay on a Land Go/No-Go Cost a Developer?

Q: What does a month of delay on a land go/no-go cost a developer?

It depends on whether the land is yours yet. Before the deposit goes hard, the cost is the extension fee on the option, if one is charged, and the risk that the site goes to someone else. After closing, it is the carry on the land. At 8.5% on a land value of 6.14 million dollars that is about 1,430 dollars a day, or 42,896 dollars for 30 days. The rate and the land value come from one finished run, not from the market or your terms.

After closing, a month of delay costs the carry on the land: about 1,430 dollars a day, 42,896 dollars for 30 days, at 8.5% on a 6.14 million dollar land value. Before it, an option fee or the site itself.

It depends on whether the land is yours yet. After closing, a month of delay costs the carry on the land: about 1,430 dollars a day, or 42,896 dollars for 30 days, at a land value of 6.14 million dollars and 8.5%. Before the deposit goes hard, it costs an option extension fee if one is charged, and the site itself if the option lapses.

The land value and the rate are figures from one finished feasibility run: the land value is the midpoint of its land-sale cross-check, the rate an assumption of its loan. Neither is a market fact or your terms. The sections below show where each number comes from and how to replace it with yours.

What does a month of delay cost per site?

Carry is the price times your cost of capital, divided by 365. The lot below is the one in a finished run of 7 October 2026, which stated no price as its answer. Its three land values are the figures the run recorded, and 8.5% is the rate of the run's construction loan.

Land value in the run	Basis	Per day (dollars)	30 days (dollars)
9.9 million	Listing of the lot, not a price paid	2,305	69,164
6.14 million	Midpoint of land-sale cross-check	1,430	42,896
5.78 million	Assessed land value on record	1,346	40,381

The arithmetic for the middle row: 6,140,000 × 8.5% = 521,900 a year, divided by 365 is 1,429.86 a day. If 60% of the 9.9 million is borrowed at that rate (the run's construction loan is 60% of project cost, so this is an illustration), the carry on the listing is 1,383 dollars a day, 41,499 for 30 days.

Three limits on these figures:

8.5% is an assumption. It is the run's loan rate, not the cost of any developer's equity.
The lot is one lot. Its values are not an average of anything.
Carry is only the part that can be calculated. The cost of a lost site is not in it.

When does the carry actually run?

Under contract and before closing, the price is not yet spent, so the carry above does not run on it. A delay costs what your contract says: an extension fee, a deposit that goes hard, the expiry of the option. We hold none of those terms and print none. After closing, the carry above runs from the closing day.

How many days does a go/no-go take?

Titleman has not measured the whole calendar, from first look to a decision, and names no number of days for it. A page of unsourced days is worse than none, and your last five land decisions are a better number than any average.

What was timed is the desk step:

What was timed	Result	Basis
Feasibility run, median	27.2 minutes	80 finished runs in the 30 days to 11 October 2026
One run in ten took longer than	74.5 minutes	Same 80 runs
The run behind the table above	1 hour 5 minutes 55 seconds	Run of 7 October 2026

The method is on the feasibility timing page. The documents from outside, a zoning letter, a title search and a contractor's price, were not timed. Order them first and run the desk study while they are in the mail, as set out in the six land-close questions.

How do I work out my own number?

Take the land price and your cost of capital. Multiply and divide by 365. That is the carry per day.
Multiply by the days of delay. Add any extension fee from your contract.
Run the residual land value at more than one build cost. In the run it went from 5.90 million dollars to minus 1.88 million between 300 and 525 dollars per SF of hard cost. A go/no-go that waits on a contractor's price is waiting on an input that moved the residual from 5.90 million dollars to minus 1.88 million in this run. See how to calculate residual land value.
State separately what you lose if the site goes to someone else.

What this page does not cover

It does not price a lost option, a lost site or the profit a delayed project forgoes. We have not measured how build costs or sale prices move over a month, and the 300 to 525 swing above is a cost sensitivity, not a time effect.

What this does not replace

Your appraiser. The study is a screen, not an appraisal.
Title and zoning documents. A title search and a zoning verification letter close what a desk study cannot.
A contractor's price. The build cost in the run is an assumption you can change.
The decision. Whether to go, which scheme to take forward and what to offer stay with you.

Run it on your site

Send the address of the site you are about to close on and we will run the feasibility, then walk you through the schemes, the residual at more than one cost and the open items. Request a demo.

Run the go/no-go on a site you are about to close on

Request a demo