"Quantify regulatory friction before pricing any project Economists at MIT and Princeton studied the Los Angeles housing market and found that developers willingly pay 50% more for land that already has its permits secured — meaning they value avoiding neighborhood battles so highly that it shows up directly in land prices. The researchers estimated that the slow permitting process alone accounts for roughly one-third of total construction costs on a typical project. Before committing to any venture where regulatory approval is uncertain, you should treat the cost of delay, legal challenges, and permit battles as a real line item — not an afterthought — because it routinely dwarfs other budget assumptions. Source: Alex Goldmark, Planet Money, The Squamish Nation's Economic Experiment"