Comment by manic85
19 hours ago
I won on Developer mode too with 4k homes built. Spent all afternoon playing this
Here’s my build order - 3 market rate projects in supportive supervisor districts, ideally in areas without heavy neighbor or coalition opposition (use the heat maps). Pay the in lieu fee or else risk the projects not penciling by the time they’re approved - 2 mega projects - mission rock is the best one, then pier 70. Waive prevailing wages, then Spend 2.5M on campaigning mission rock and offer community benefits
Spam community meetings and permit expediting. Don’t agree to labor agreements, don’t give density unless the commission denies your approval. This should get you past the first two investor reviews. Ideally you can complete a mega project, which gives you a buffer to option a bunch of marginal land
Then pivot to affordable around 2020 when everything stops penciling. Max out density bonuses. Start picking up projects that almost pencil but not quite because you’ll need them to get past the reviews in 2027 and beyond
Keep spamming community meetings and permit expediting, and always pay to save on build time unless your in the 20-25 doldrums where nothing pencils. Keep your pipeline full and you should win
I built 6,847 homes in San Francisco, 2015 to 2031. Grade S, "Person the Neighbors Have Heard Of". Survived all eight investor reviews. 25 hearings, 3 appeals, 1 lawsuits. The city needed 82,069. Ranked #1 of 12 on the global leaderboard.
You can build a lot more mega projects, but it hinges on luck and timings. Before the price crash in 2020, you can build phase 1 of all the pre-approved mega projects, and have time to start phase 2 on one of them.
You'll go bankrupt before you can do them all, so you need to pick up at least one of the pre-approveds, then immediately drop and sell the entitlement, for ~8M profit, that gets you the buffer needed.
Mission Rock you can build the first phase before the crash, then hold onto it allll the way through until the late 2020s when prices recover, and get the 2nd phase out then. Pier 70 is pretty luck-dependent.