Real Estate Development Accountant

Key Responsibilities

• Prepare and maintain pre-development budgets, including land acquisition costs, zoning, permitting, and soft costs.
• Track feasibility study expenses and compare them against approved budgets.
• Model project pro formas, including anticipated financing costs, developer fees, and contingency allowances.
• Record and categorize all pre-development expenditures (legal, architectural, engineering, due diligence).
• Maintain general ledger accounts for pre-development costs to ensure accurate capitalization.
• Monitor use of equity contributions and pre-construction financing draws.
• Prepare draw requests for lenders and investors, including supporting documentation for each cost incurred.
• Track pre-development loan interest, fees, and repayment schedules.
• Produce monthly pre-development financial reports for project managers and executives.
• Aid in variance analysis between budgeted and actual costs.
• Provide financial input for investor updates and capital partner reporting.
• Maintain detailed job cost reports by cost code, including committed costs vs. actuals.
• Process contractors invoices and progress billings, ensuring alignment with contract terms and percentage of completion.
• Prepare monthly construction loan draw packages with all supporting invoices, lien waivers, and compliance documents.
• Reconcile lender draw disbursements with recorded project costs.
• Monitor availability of contingency funds and adjust forecasts accordingly.
• Produce development-phase financial statements for management and investors.
• Ensure compliance with loan agreements, investor reporting requirements, and audit requests.
• Monitor insurance costs, bonds, and other project-related financial obligations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or Finance and a minimum of 1 year of applying accounting principles in a general contracting environment with annual revenue of at least $10MM; or an acceptable equivalent to education and experience in the field.
• Able to demonstrate proficiency with general accounting principles and application of appropriate standards such as revenue recognition, job costing, and payroll taxes.
• Hands-on experience preparing financial reports and extracting data from databases to prepare reports for analysis at a high level.
• Likely to have LIHTC experience.
• Strong Excel skills and experience working with Quickbooks software.
• Experience in accounting, real estate accounting, or property accounting preferred.
• Experience in real estate industry preferred.
• Solid written and verbal communication skills are a must.
• Good interpersonal, communication, organizational, multi-tasking, teamwork, and abstract thinking skills are required.