Raw land to income-producing asset. Start to finish.

A Bay Area physician couple I had never met in person hired me to manage their 720 sf bungalow on a 2,500 sf lot. I saw a second unit, spent $600 on a site plan and rendering to prove it, and sold them on it. In July 2023 they signed a pre-development and construction management agreement with me, before I had built a custom home or held a contractor's license. They bought the plan and the way it was explained.

Designed a 723 sf farmhouse-style 1BR (602 sf conditioned plus a 158 sf storage loft and upper deck). Plans approved by the City of Redondo Beach on July 10, 2024. Vetted and hired every trade through rough framing, then brought the job in house and installed the finish trim myself. On the existing house: a new bedroom and a rebuilt envelope (Hardie, sheathing, insulation, six Title 24 windows, foundation waterproofing), with rent kept flowing through construction on an attorney-drafted disclosure.

The owners had complete transparency the whole way: an online portal showing budget remaining, every dollar spent, on what, with receipts, at any hour.

Hired to salvage a damaged 120-foot dock on a 4,077 sf waterfront home on Humboldt Island. I scoped the full replacement (demo, new composite dock and gangway, biological survey, engineering, Regional Water Quality Control Board and California Coastal Commission permits), then restored the dock completely.

Leased the house at $18,000 a month without giving up the owners' dock rights, then rented the dock itself through a dock-sharing platform, so the owners could use it when they wanted and earn from it when they did not.

Hired to evict a non-paying tenant. After the unlawful detainer, she flooded the property on lockout day. I ran the insurance claim, the mold remediation and the asbestos abatement, then sold the owner on a $130,000 remodel inside and out: paint, trim, new doors, landscaping, kitchens, flooring, fixtures.

On a dated block of identical triplexes, this one now has the best finishes and the highest rents. The owner's losses were recovered with a lien against the tenant's estranged husband's property.

Underwrote it before buying it: a due-diligence binder with the preliminary title report, assessor maps for all three parcels, the flood report, the City's land-use map and general plan, the vacation-home-rental ordinance, rental comps, and short-term-rental earning potential at four configurations, from $56.6K a year as a 2-bedroom to $135.4K as a 20-guest ranch and inn.

Then bought it and did the $178K conversion: the wraparound deck over the boulders, the pool terrace and spa, the pergola patio, a repaint with the poppy mural, the kitchen and baths redone, all of it permitted. Secured the city's vacation-home-rental license and listed it. The reservation requests that came in during a 9-day marketing window matched the Phase 1 projection of the phased pro forma. A car-camping site on Hipcamp earned on top of it.

Each one started with the same question: what is the highest and best use of this property for this owner? Sometimes the answer was a bedroom; sometimes it was furnishing it and putting it on Airbnb; once it was a two-week refresh and a sale.

The largest landowner group in the Morongo Basin accepted my letter of intent for a development agreement: 300 raised campsites and 100 sand sites, offsite roads, 4,700 lineal feet of 6-inch water main, an electrical extension, ten-year ground leases, and a management agreement for Proper. I wrote the LOI, the deal structure and the campsite lease terms, and ran highest-and-best-use analysis across their 2,143 acres in 70 parcels.

Skyfall Resort was the plan for 324 of those acres: 150 geodesic domes and tiny homes, 150 canvas tents, 100 sand sites, with roads, a well, power, a pool and spa, and an amphitheater, structured as three parties (development company, owner-lessor, management company) on 10-year site leases with a site-improvement fee to repay investors. I wrote the sell-versus-hold case, designed the deck, and submitted the plan to the City. Not approved; the plan and the structure stand.

An abandoned Chinese restaurant on Highway 62, next door to a bar and across the street from the busiest restaurant and hotel in town. The brief I set myself: repurpose the existing building as cheaply as possible, design it to read as a neighbor to both of them, and give it more than one way to make money.

The shell stays and the kitchen prep area is retrofitted. The money goes outside: two pickleball courts, a pergola and entry lounge, a garden and social yard, lighting and branding. Inside, two golf simulators and six arcade games fill the dining room. Courts, simulators, arcade and lounge each earn on their own, so no single one has to carry the rent.

Across the highway from Tortoise Rock Casino. The landowner contributes the parcel, a second partner contributes five mobile homes, a third contributes $500K of cash, and Proper Development contributes the plan and the work. Phase 1: $1.25M capitalized, $550K of site plan, permitting, grading, water, power, septic and setup. Phase 2: $2.6M of construction debt and partner capital for fifteen more units. Twenty units at $2,500–2,750 a month.

Proper Development was engaged to produce the investor presentation, a virtual rendering of the community, the Flodesk email campaign and the Webflow landing page for a workforce-housing development serving the Beatty mining boom. Funds were raised. A client engagement, not my own development, and a good example of the design and sales side of the work.

Five dwelling units on two acres with service-commercial zoning. Long-term rentals pencil at an 8% cap and a 1% IRR; a mixed-use plan (adobe bar, writer's den, cottage, shared amenities) at $108K of year-one revenue, a 21% cap and a 25% IRR; full hospitality with five campsites at $196K of revenue and a 44% IRR. Acquisition, renovation, operating, financing, exit and sensitivity tabs, with a negotiated-offer strategy. The full table is in the pro formas below.

Engaged by the landowner to deliver a written development feasibility assessment (zoning and conditional uses, jurisdictional approvals and fees, onsite and utility constraints, environmental constraints including forest-fire, seismic and flood exposure, roadway requirements) and the economics: offsite and onsite costs, treehouse construction, occupancy and rent, management costs, and projected return on cost.