The Ben James Smith Podcast — Episode 10 — The Hidden Risk in Property Development: Capital Structure

Welcome back to The Ben James Smith Podcast.Today I want to talk about a risk in property development that almost nobody outside professional capital allocators spends time thinking about.It’s not planning risk.It’s not build cost risk.It’s not even market risk.It’s capital structure risk.And interestingly, it’s often the risk that destroys otherwise profitable projects.Because many developments do not fail due to the property — they fail due to the money attached to it.So today we’re going to unpack why the structure of capital matters more than the price of debt, why misaligned incentives cause forced outcomes, and why sophisticated investors analyse funding behaviour before analysing the asset. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit benjamessmith.substack.com