Day in the Life · Arthur the Developer · 34K views

Day In The Life Of A Real Estate Developer | How I Make 6 Figures+ Per Deal

A day on Arthur's active projects and the mechanics behind six-figure margins per deal.

Six figures per deal is not luck, it’s arithmetic done before the land is bought. This video shows the day-to-day; here is the math underneath it.

The developer’s math

Take a $750,000 target sale price. Cap the land at 25%: $187,500. Construction plus the builder’s fee around $378,000. After agent and title fees, that deal clears roughly $147,000 in profit, about 25% ROI. That’s a 2,250 sqft, 4-bed 2.5-bath home with a 2-car garage. Nothing exotic.

Run your own numbers

The developer’s formula: sale price minus land, construction, and ~3% selling costs. Investment build assumes ~10% down + closing.

Target sale priceLand costConstruction + builder fee

$162,000

Est. profit

29%

ROI on cost

25%

Land % of sale

212%

Cash-on-cash

Rules of thumb from the BuildUp playbook: land at 20-25% of sale price or less, and a minimum 20% ROI (target 25%) before breaking ground. Red numbers mean the deal doesn’t pencil yet. Estimates only, not financial advice.

Fall in love with the numbers, not the real estate. A strict minimum of 20% ROI, and a target of 25%, on every single project before breaking ground.

Why cash-on-cash is the real story

With a lender covering ~90% of the project, your capital in that deal is about $76,000 (10% down plus closing). $147,000 of profit on $76,000 deployed is a 193% cash-on-cash return. Compare that to the S&P’s ~10% or a rental’s 8-15% and you see why we build.

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