Sunday, March 22, 2015

Jessica Joly- Juan Maroso

            Our final speaker for the day was Jessica Joly. Jessica works as a development manager for Stiles. Jessica graduated in University of New Orleans in Marketing and Business Administration; she then acquired a Masters degree in Real Estate Development at Nova Southeastern University. Jessica assist in owner representation for commercial real estate development project. Her responsibilities include working with development managers on project planning and coordination, due diligence, obtaining government approvals and financial feasibility analysis. 

            Jessica basically went through the whole process of explaining how she handled a development of a retail center anchored by Publix. Jessica’s presentation was very interesting, in this particular development she ran into many unforeseen events, which was, what I thought, the most interesting aspect of the presentation because it showed me that anything can come up when it comes to development. Jessica works for one of the biggest real estate companies in South Florida and even with that knowledge and power backing her up she still ran into many issues that were unexpected and threw off her financial projections. This is a lesson that has to be learned in this business, because even if you do a very thorough due diligence other issues may pop up all of the sudden. In Jessica’s case when the GC was excavating he found a pipe that had to be relocated and cost them extra money. Due diligence can be the most important task when it comes to site acquisition.

            Jessica seemed really smart and experienced. I really enjoyed her presentation and it reinforced valuable lesson that I already knew, before acquiring any piece of land, make sure you do your due diligence extensively and make sure you solve any problem that pops up before acquiring a site, this will help you mitigate your risk, but it wont assure you something else might come up, nothing will.


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