Eugene Gershman Development Insights

Eugene Gershman Development Insights Eugene Gershman is a seasoned business executive with nearly 20 years of experience in real estate and construction.

Helping Property Owners Maximize Land Value Through Full-Service Development Management | Feasibility, Capital Structuring, and Ex*****on Without Selling the Land
📩 DM “FEASIBILITY” for my free checklist to see if your land is buildable His expertise ranges from finance to technology and he prides himself with ongoing search for innovation and growth. Gershman started his career by working for his

father’s construction firm through high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and an MBA from University of Washington, Foster School of Business. After a short stint in financial services, Eugene formally joined the family business in 2004. Under his leadership GIS successfully managed several real estate development projects ranging from construction of luxury single‐family custom homes to large commercial projects. Some notable projects include Park 12, a luxury townhome development in Bellevue, WA; GIS Plaza in downtown Bellevue - a boutique mix use development; Madison Plaza in Kent, WA – the first building in the City to achieve a 4-star BuiltGreen certification and recognized as the tallest building in Kent at completion; as well as several others. Gershman is a respected industry leader and has been recognized for his contributions to the industry. He spoke at industry conferences and has been quoted in print publications such as Puget Sound Business Journal, Daily Journal of Commerce and The Registry.

A lower rate will not fix a deal that was built too thin.Everyone wants the Fed to make the model easier.I get it. Debt ...
06/04/2026

A lower rate will not fix a deal that was built too thin.

Everyone wants the Fed to make the model easier.

I get it. Debt cost matters. A move in rates can change proceeds, coverage, buyer psychology, exit value, and whether the lender conversation feels possible.

But if the deal only survives because the next rate move saves it, the capital stack was already weak.

That is the part people skip.

Cheaper debt is only one part of the test.

The question is whether the project can survive delay, lower proceeds, a slower exit, a reserve call, a cost miss, or a lender asking for more equity when the sponsor is already stretched.

If the answer is no, do not blame the Fed for exposing it.

The problem was in the structure.

Rates matter. They always have.

But a good capital plan has to work under stress. It has to explain who signs, who funds overruns, who answers the capital call, what happens at maturity, and whether the exit still works if the market is less friendly than the first model assumed.

Waiting can be a strategy.

Waiting because the deal cannot breathe at today's numbers is usually just hope with a spreadsheet attached.

Family land gets expensive when nobody knows who can say yes.I have seen this problem show up before the design work eve...
06/03/2026

Family land gets expensive when nobody knows who can say yes.

I have seen this problem show up before the design work even matters.

The property is real. The opportunity may be real. The family wants to know what the land could become.

Fine.

But who has authority?

Who can approve spending the first money?

Who can sign the consultant agreements?

Who is comfortable with debt?

Who needs liquidity now?

Who is willing to bring in outside capital, and who is going to hate that conversation later?

People want feasibility to answer everything. It cannot answer a family governance problem.

A feasibility study can test zoning, cost, market, schedule, financing, and exit. It cannot make five owners agree on risk if nobody settled the decision rights first.

That is why family land can sit for years.

Everyone likes the theoretical upside. Nobody wants to be the person who funds the ugly middle, signs the documents, or tells the cousin that the cleanest move might be selling.

Before the architect starts drawing, answer the uncomfortable questions.

Who decides?

Who pays?

Who can wait?

Who needs out?

If those answers are not clear, the project is already slow.

Free advice is easy to offer when nobody has to sign anything.I get asked about coaching, courses, masterminds, all of i...
06/02/2026

Free advice is easy to offer when nobody has to sign anything.

I get asked about coaching, courses, masterminds, all of it.

I am happy to answer real questions. If someone owns land and wants to understand the first few moves, I can usually point them in the right direction.

But there is a line where advice stops being advice.

That line usually shows up when somebody has to spend money.

Survey. Architect. Civil. Geotech. Legal. Market study. Cost estimate. City meetings. Operating agreement. Equity structure. Lender conversations. Contractor input before the drawings get too cute.

Those are not motivational exercises. They are checks, decisions, and exposure.

So yes, ask the question.

I will answer what I can for free.

But if you want someone to help carry a real project through feasibility, capital, entitlements, design, construction, and exit, that is implementation.

Implementation has consequences.

It has to be scoped. It has to be paid for. The incentives have to line up. The owner has to understand who is doing what, who is taking what risk, and when the first real money leaves the account.

The internet has enough people selling the feeling of progress.

Development does not care how good the lesson sounded.

It cares who writes the first check and who is still around when the first plan comes back wrong.

He wanted a partner, but he wanted the partner to carry the headache.That sounds harsh. It is also one of the most commo...
06/01/2026

He wanted a partner, but he wanted the partner to carry the headache.

That sounds harsh. It is also one of the most common landowner conversations in development.

The owner has the land. The project looks obvious. Apartments, townhomes, mixed-use, whatever the site seems to support. Then the ask comes in: "Can you help develop it for a share?"

Maybe.

But what does that actually mean?

Who pays for feasibility? Who hires the architect, civil, geotech, land-use attorney, estimator, and contractor for early input? Who signs the loan documents? Who guarantees completion? Who handles the city when the first plan comes back with comments nobody budgeted for?

Who writes the check when the consultant invoices show up before the project is financeable?

This is where a lot of "partnership" talk gets cute.

Land is valuable. It can be the most important contribution in the deal. But land alone does not manage risk, fund predevelopment, or absorb delay.

If the owner wants all the upside and the other side carries all the exposure, there is no real alignment. There is just a fight waiting for a term sheet.

The first question is simple: what is each party actually bringing, and what risk are they willing to carry?

If that answer is fuzzy, the partnership is already in trouble.

Prior spend does not force today's deal to work.This is one of the hardest conversations with owners.They paid for plans...
05/29/2026

Prior spend does not force today's deal to work.

This is one of the hardest conversations with owners.

They paid for plans.

They paid consultants.

They sat through city comments.

They waited.

They fought for the site.

So when the project stops penciling, the first reaction is usually some version of:

"But we already spent all this money."

I understand the frustration.

I also do not care what the sunk cost wants.

The market does not reimburse you for being early.

The lender does not care that the plans were expensive if the numbers cannot support the debt.

The buyer does not pay extra because the entitlement process was painful.

Prior spend can create value. It can also create a very expensive file that still cannot be built profitably under current conditions.

That is the difference between possible value and executable value.

Possible value is what the story says the site could become.

Executable value is what survives cost, financing, approvals, schedule, and exit.

If those two numbers are far apart, the disciplined move may be to pause, sell, restructure, redesign, or stop.

Painful?

Yes.

Still cheaper than pretending yesterday's checks can make today's math behave.

The lowest bid is expensive when the scope is fake.I get why people chase it.The number is right there. It looks clean. ...
05/28/2026

The lowest bid is expensive when the scope is fake.

I get why people chase it.

The number is right there. It looks clean. It makes the spreadsheet feel better. Everyone wants to believe the cheap bid means the team found savings.

Sometimes they did.

A lot of the time, they found missing work.

That difference matters.

A bid before the drawings are mature is not the same animal as a bid after scope, specs, site conditions, allowances, exclusions, schedule, submittals, and trade constraints are clear.

If the contractor missed the utility work, the shoring assumption, the material substitution, the access issue, the escalation clause, or the inspection sequence, the savings are imaginary.

They come back later as change orders, schedule drift, lender questions, and owner frustration.

This is why early contractor input is useful, but only if everybody understands what it is.

Early input is a warning system.

It is not a magic final price.

The cheap number is only useful if you know what it includes, what it excludes, and what recourse you have when it breaks.

Otherwise you did not save money.

You bought a surprise.

Unchanged lending standards do not make a weak file financeable.The Federal Reserve's April 2026 senior loan officer sur...
05/27/2026

Unchanged lending standards do not make a weak file financeable.

The Federal Reserve's April 2026 senior loan officer survey said banks left standards basically unchanged on net for construction and land development loans in the first quarter.

That sounds calmer than the panic version of the market.

Fine.

But unchanged standards still have standards.

A bank can be open for business and still hate your deal.

That is the part owners and first-time sponsors miss.

If the scope is loose, the budget is soft, the equity is vague, the guarantee is thin, the entitlement path is uncertain, or the exit depends on everybody being nicer next year, the file still has a problem.

The Fed also said a moderate net share of banks reported weaker demand for construction and land development loans.

That does not mean nobody can finance anything.

It means the file has to carry more of its own weight.

The lender is not there to rescue your optimism.

They are there to decide whether the project can survive debt.

So before you say "we can get financing," answer the boring questions:

What is the all-in cost?

Where is the equity really coming from?

What changes if the schedule slips?

Who signs?

What happens if the exit market is worse than the first model assumed?

A good property can still be the wrong project for the owner.People hate this answer because it ruins the fantasy that t...
05/26/2026

A good property can still be the wrong project for the owner.

People hate this answer because it ruins the fantasy that the dirt decides everything.

It does not.

The owner decides whether the development path is realistic.

Can they wait?

Can they fund early work?

Can they tolerate debt?

Can they make decisions quickly?

Can the family agree on who has authority?

Can they handle bringing in outside capital without turning every capital call into a family meeting from hell?

Same site. Same zoning. Same market.

Different owner, completely different answer.

One owner should sell.

One should hold.

One should entitle and sell.

One should bring in a partner.

One might actually develop.

The mistake is treating development like the serious option and selling like the boring option.

The serious option is the one the owner can survive.

Everything else is a spreadsheet with better lighting.

The permit history does not make today's deal pencil.This is where owners get trapped.They paid for plans.They paid cons...
05/22/2026

The permit history does not make today's deal pencil.

This is where owners get trapped.

They paid for plans.

They paid consultants.

They went through city comments.

Maybe they even got approvals.

So they assume the project now has to be valuable.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes the market moved, the budget moved, rates moved, fees moved, rents moved, the buyer pool moved, or the exit moved.

Now the entitlement is real, but the economics are not.

That feels unfair because the money already got spent.

I get it.

But sunk cost is not feasibility.

The next buyer, lender, partner, or investor does not care what the drawings cost if the project cannot be built profitably now.

They care what the deal is worth today, with today's costs, today's capital, today's schedule, today's risk, and today's exit.

That is why "we already spent `$300,000`" is not a valuation argument.

It is a sentence about regret.

Entitlements can create value. They can also age into a very expensive file folder.

The question is not what you spent to get here.

The question is whether the next dollar still makes sense.

What is harder for owners to accept: sunk cost, lower land value, changed financing, or that the approved project may be the wrong project now?

The developer is not the person who knows every trade.That is a fantasy people pick up from the outside.They think the d...
05/22/2026

The developer is not the person who knows every trade.

That is a fantasy people pick up from the outside.

They think the developer is supposed to know architecture, civil engineering, lending, zoning, construction, equity, contracts, marketing, sales, taxes, utilities, politics, and every screw in the wall.

No.

The developer is the producer.

The job is knowing who needs to be in the room, when they need to be there, what question they are supposed to answer, and what risk gets expensive if nobody asks it early enough.

Bring the civil engineer too late and the site plan may be fiction.

Bring the contractor too late and the budget may be a bedtime story.

Bring the lender too late and the capital stack may not match the project.

Bring the attorney too late and the decision rights may turn into a fight when money gets tight.

Bring the market study too late and you may spend real money proving demand you should have tested before the concept got expensive.

That is why "I will figure it out as I go" is such an expensive sentence in development.

You do not need to know everything.

You do need to know what you do not know soon enough that the right person can still change the outcome.

That is the job.

Not pretending to be the expert in every chair.

Getting the right chairs filled before the wrong assumption becomes concrete.

What specialist gets brought in too late most often: civil, GC, lender, attorney, market study, or utility?

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