Indecision Is a Tax. And Time Kills Deals.

At the outset, this project looked like many others we’d done successfully. The site penciled. The market fundamentals were strong. We were moving through entitlements, lining up equity, and engaging a general contractor we hadn’t worked with before but who had a solid reputation in the region. When their initial pricing came back higher than expected, it didn’t feel fatal. It felt like a moment to pause, re-evaluate, and make sure we were making the “right” decision. We had moving pieces everywhere: equity partners who weren’t quite ready to commit, a separate for-sale lot that needed to close so we could recycle that cash into the multifamily deal, and county plan check timelines that were already stretching longer than we’d modeled.

So we hesitated. Not dramatically. Not irresponsibly. Just enough to say, “Let’s take another look.”

What we underestimated was how the market was moving while we stood still. That GC was extremely busy, primarily with repeat clients who could move quickly and decisively. After a short period of back-and-forth, they called us and effectively fired us as a client. Not because the deal was bad, but because indecision made us less attractive than developers who were ready to commit immediately. They had to allocate their best teams, and those teams were going to projects that could say yes without delay.

By the time we regrouped and brought in a trusted GC we’d worked with before, the consequences of time had already set in. This GC had never built in that specific market, so they priced conservatively. Repricing the project came in roughly $5M higher than the original bid, and the construction schedule extended by five months. Nothing catastrophic had happened. No single decision “killed” the deal. But as the old adage goes, time kills deals, and here it did exactly that. The lesson wasn’t about picking the wrong GC. It was about underestimating how expensive hesitation becomes when everyone else is busy moving forward.