Land Residual and HBU Analyzer
Back into what a land parcel is worth from what could actually be built on it
0 downloads on LenderSkills
Install it in one line — paste a single command into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor and it writes the skill into your project.
Free, and about thirty seconds: a work email and a six-digit code.
Downloading shares your name, firm, role, and email with Mario Urquia. That introduction is what keeps every skill here free.
What this skill does
Works backward from what a finished project would be worth to what the land under it can support — for each use the zoning allows — then discounts for entitlement risk and checks the answer against land sales priced per buildable square foot.
What it does
- Tests each candidate use against the four-part highest-and-best-use test
- Computes residual land value from stabilized value less every non-land cost and developer profit
- Discounts the result for the approvals still needed
- Checks land cost as a share of total development cost
- Normalizes comparable land sales to price per buildable square foot
When to use it
- A land loan request comes in at the seller's asking price
- Testing a borrower's claimed land value
- Deciding how much land credit to give in a construction loan
- Comparing uses for a site
What to have ready
- Site address, area and zoning
- Allowed density (FAR, units per acre or height)
- Market rents and cap rates by use, if known
- Asking price, comparable land sales and entitlement status
How to use it
- Download it with the button above. You'll sign in with a work email — that's how the creator knows who is using their skill.
- Copy the install prompt from the "Run it in Claude" box, and paste it into Claude along with the file. Claude installs the skill, fills in your firm's details where the file has
[BRACKETED]placeholders, and runs a quick test with you. - Then just ask in plain English. Claude picks the skill up on its own when a request matches it. Anything it still needs, it asks you for — it won't invent a number.
"What is [ADDRESS], a [NUMBER]-acre parcel zoned [ZONING], worth as land? The seller wants $[PRICE]."
What you get back
A highest-and-best-use matrix, a residual calculation for each use, a comparable land sales table and a proceed/negotiate/pass verdict with a supportable land price.
Good to know
- Output quality tracks input quality. A missing figure is flagged as missing — it is never estimated to fill a gap.
- Every draft is a starting point for your own review, not a finished decision.
- Runs anywhere Claude does: the Claude app, Claude Desktop, or Claude Code.
- A residual is a feasibility cross-check, not an appraisal. Entitlement probabilities and cost percentages are the author's illustrative defaults and the author's market benchmarks date from mid-2025.
Source & credit
Imported from Mario Urquia's open-source CRE Skills Plugin (Apache-2.0). Author: Mario Urquia — https://github.com/mariourquia/cre-skills-plugin. LenderSkills labelled the entitlement probabilities and cost percentages as illustrative defaults; it also appended a legal disclaimer, and the package header lists every change. The author's content is otherwise unmodified. Full credit to the author. Mario Urquia did not submit this listing and does not endorse it — the original is free at the link above.
Legal disclaimer
This skill drafts; it does not decide. Its output is not legal, tax, accounting, appraisal, or investment advice, and using it creates no attorney-client, fiduciary, or advisory relationship. Nothing it produces is a commitment to lend or an offer to sell a security. Verify every number, date, citation, and conclusion against the source documents, and have a qualified professional licensed in the relevant jurisdiction review the work before you rely on it or send it to a borrower, investor, counterparty, or regulator. Laws, rates, and market data change. The final work product is yours.
Inside this skill
The actual file you get. Members can read it in full before saving it.
Land Residual & HBU Analyzer
You are a development land pricing engine. Given a site with zoning and market parameters, you compute residual land value for each feasible use type by working backward from stabilized completed value, select the highest-and-best-use, apply entitlement probability adjustments, and deliver a feasibility verdict. The residual approach works backward from what the market supports, never forward from the seller's asking price.
When to Activate
Trigger on any of these signals:
- Explicit: "land residual," "highest and best use," "HBU," "how much is this land worth," "what can I build here," "land pricing," "development feasibility"
- Implicit: user provides a land parcel with site details (acreage, zoning, density) and asks about pricing or development potential; user pastes a land listing or broker OM and asks whether the price is supportable
- Upstream: any ground-up development proforma where land cost needs validation
Reading the full skill counts as a download. The contributor receives your name, company, and email.
Ratings & reviews
No written reviews yet. If you run this on a live file, say how it went. The next lender reading this page is deciding whether to trust it.
Examination record
Run it in Claude
- Copy the install command above
- Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor
- It writes the skill in, fills in your firm’s details, and test-runs it with you
Prefer the file? The prompt above is for a package you already downloaded.
Details
More from Mario Urquia
Imported from their public repository with attribution. Their other skills, and where to find the original, are on their contributor page.