Research on the Financing of Residential Development

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is inviting a single tenderer to deliver a comprehensive research paper on the financing of residential development across Ireland. The study should deepen the Department’s understanding of the complete financing cycle—from project inception and land acquisition through to construction, development‑exit, and sale—by mapping the sources, flows, timings, and costs involved in each stage. The deliverable must be organized around a limited number of illustrative case studies that reflect representative private, profit‑oriented residential construction projects, and should detail how the financial flows interact with the parent company’s corporate balance sheet, including land assets.

The research must examine a range of factors influencing financing, such as project typology (high‑density brownfield versus peripheral greenfield), opportunity costs of developer equity, collateralisation practices and asset values, land acquisition loan terms, risk assessment methodologies from the lender’s perspective, loan covenants and associated fees, the cost and timing profiles of senior and junior debt, staged release of funds tied to project milestones, interest payment structuring, and post‑development refinancing. The study should also assess how capital is restricted or recycled after exit and consider variations in costs and covenants that may affect inexperienced or smaller developers. All findings must be presented in accordance with the Standards for Accounting and Financial Reporting in Ireland (IFRS 15, IAS 23) and the applicable GDPR data protection requirements.

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is procuring, from a single tenderer, a research paper intended to widen the Department’s understanding of the financing of residential development in Ireland through the development cycle, from project inception to sale, focusing on generating a detailed description of the financial flows, encompassing project level finance and how those flows relate to the parent company’s corporate balance sheet, including land assets. The Department’s goal is to understand, over the lifespan of a set of representative private, profit-oriented, residential construction projects, the sources, flows, timings and costs of the various forms of development financing, including financing during the pre-construction period, that is, of the purchase and holding of land and design/consent phases, in addition to the financing of the construction and development-exit (sales period) phases of a residential project. As such, the output will be organised with reference to a small number of case studies that demonstrate the financial flows. Aspects of interest include: - Different project typologies, for instance high density brownfield vs peripheral greenfield housing, and how those project typologies influence the timing and costs of financing; - The opportunity cost of developer’s equity; - The extent to which loans and funding are collateralised, and the nature and value of the assets used as collateral; - Land acquisition finance, including how typical land loan values are calculated, the broader terms of such loans and the degree to which the cost of finance can change depending on whether a site has planning permission or not; - How project risk is assessed and quantified from the perspective of lenders, including market conditions, construction risks, the developer's track record, housing typologies, and the role of developers in providing potential providers of finance with feasibility studies to mitigate risks and provide a comprehensive understanding of the project; - The potential range of loan covenants; - The costs of broker and lender arrangement fees, exit fees, and non-utilisation fees; - The different cost and timing profiles of senior and junior debt and the macroeconomic and project-specific factors which determine those costs; - How development funding is arranged to be released in stages linked to project milestones; - Whether interest payments are rolled up and collateralised or paid off in periodic instalments; - The use of refinancing once development has concluded but prior to sale; and, - How capital is restricted or recycled into further projects on exit, depending on the option deployed to finance at the start of a project. A further objective is to understand the degree to which variation exists, for instance, different costs and covenants which may apply to inexperienced or smaller developers.

Evaluation Mechanism: Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT)
Procurement Type: Services
Procedure: Open
CfT Involves: A Public Contract
Above or Below threshold: Below
Award per Item: No
Time-limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate: 17/07/2026 23:30
End of clarification period: 03/07/2026 23:30
Tenders Opening Date: 19/07/2026 00:00
Allow suppliers to make an online Expression Of Interest: Yes
Contract awarded in Lots: No
EU funding: No
Multiple tenders will be accepted: No
Status: Tender Submission