Capital Investment Appraisal

I'm familiar with the capital investment appraisal because I had learnt it before but familiar is not enough. After going through the seminar with Sam, I found what's the problem of me, I know the theory but never put it in the real practice and this integrated project give me a chance to further discuss with my teammate. This module assignment has lead me to discover the importance of net present value (NPV) and internal rate return (IRR). Project with high NPV and IRR represent a potential investment because it provide confirmation on profitability and recover the budget in short time. 

This lecture and seminar help me to improve my cost management skill as required under RICS professional competencies framework.

Refurbishment

Refurbishment is the topic of this week. After going through the lecture, I found that local people prefer refurbishment instead of demolish and rebuild . This incident had shown that local people had high sustainable awareness and tend to reduce the environment impact and maintain the original outlook of the building. 

In my country, Malaysia, people prefer to demolish and rebuilt rather than refurbishment, one of the main reason is people emphasized on the profitability of business. The main issue that deciding refurbishment or demolish and rebuild is the current condition of the building. A old building with lots of defect required lot of sources to refurbish and not mention about high safety and health risk. However, in my opinion, some historical building should be greatly encouraged to refurbish to lengthen the lasting period. Historical building used to memorial our ancestor and culture and also act as an attractive point in the city. In this lecture, I learnt the factors to be considered for making  decision of refurbishment or demolish and rebuild.

Sustainable

This week our lecturer, Ms. Liew had talk about the green development and sustainable development. Through the lesson, I just realized the differences between both development. Sustainable entities are those that meet present needs without   compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. 

Green development entitles are those building built by green technology and green design. That means green doesn't always mean sustainable, and what's "green" isn't always that good. From this lesson I had learnt that we must be smart in green other wise the result will still go bad or even worse. I doesn't mean is bad to go green, but we have to do it right. I used to buy organic vegetable to support "green" because it has less chemical and pesticide even thought it is an expensive option and I was really surprised when I have been told that the extra sources that deliver organic vegetable will bring more harm to the environment and I found that I made a huge mistake from the beginning. After that I decided only choose organic vegetable from local which consume less fuel and other sources. I will also spread the information to my family to prevent them turn good intentions into misdeeds. 

Market Appraisal for Land Development

Market Appraisal

Market appraisal is the topic of week 5. Market appraisal can be categorized into two kinds, which is PESTLE and SWOT. I myself is more familiar with the SWOT analysis which stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat. I used this analysis method frequently in my previous projects, because it is more simple to come up with a list but later on I found that it is far too easy to miss important external factors. Coming up with the results of each factor is not enough, for the SWOT to be successful it is essential to carry out further analysis of all the possible threats and disadvantages from external to make sure that they have been planned for in advance.

PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental)  that I have learnt in this lecture and seminar stands for the analysis of the external factor which can exactly remedy the inadequate of SWOT. I found that it is a good idea to combine the two to help provide us with the best analysis, for example, it is good practice to perform the PESTLE and then use the results in the opportunities and threat section of the SWOT. I believe the combination of both analysis can help me make better strategic decision in my proposal. Besides that, this market appraisal will help in improving the decision making skill and exposed me to the skill of assessing the environmental risk factor associated with a development which are the essential skills in RICS Professional Competencies Framework.