The residential market volatility often changes the rules for its players, and today’s market is no exception. The housing boom that followed the Covid pandemic is now cooling fast, squeezed by high interest rates, rising land cost, and a first-time home buyer market that has largely been priced out.
Builders are entering safety mode, pulling back from self-developing and returning to buying finished lots directly from private developers.
Our expert, Emiliano Guerrero, PE, Texas Regional Manager, Civil/Site; has seen this cycle from every angle for the past two decades. Guerrero works daily at the intersection of private developers, builders and the infrastructure challenges around this. “You didn’t really see a lot of private developers post the 2008 meltdown” he says. “The homebuilders had to start building their own lots. But now? We are seeing the resurgence of private developers; they are back and they are leading the market”.
Who Should Be at the Table from Day One?
For private developers entering or re-entering this market, the opportunity is real. But so is the complexity. Infrastructure constraints, entitlement risks, utility district formations, and municipal nuances. Dealing with these issues alone, or too late in the process, could mean significant project delays and increased costs.
That makes one question more important than ever: Who should be sitting at their table from day one? The right civil firm is now more essential than ever before. But not every civil engineering firm is built to serve a private developer the way this market demands.
The Right Partnership
According to Guerrero, private developers need a trusted partner, someone who understands their business, and they’ll want to bring them in as early as possible. The right engineering firm will provide value far beyond a stamp and plans—a firm with local knowledge, extensive presence in the area, established connections, and the robust in-house capabilities to mitigate risks and resolve issues.
The most underappreciated value of civil engineering is the ability to quickly tell a developer what “won’t work”, before they invest months and significant capital chasing it. Guerrero’s team regularly vets land opportunities and delivers fast informed assessments: lot density projections, infrastructure cost ranges, known site complications, and red flags that only come from having seen the deal before.
That kind of intelligence does not only save money, but it also enables developers to move quickly to opportunities that actually work.
Colliers Engineering & Design: Integrated Expertise, Strategic Partnership
Colliers Engineering & Design has eight strategic office locations and over two decades of experience in Texas — San Antonio, New Braunfels, Austin, Dallas, Southlake, Bryan, Aransas Pass, and Houston—, with dedicated, regionally embedded teams. These professionals have seen the deals, know the municipalities, understand which utility providers are under capacity constraints, and can anticipate where TxDOT will push back on access.
The firm works with builders across the spectrum — national, regional, and mid-size — and those relationships create real matchmaking opportunities. If a developer’s initial builder backs out of a contract, Guerrero’s team can often connect them with another builder actively looking for that exact product in that exact market. As he puts it, “We almost become salesmen for them.” That is not a service most engineering firms offer, but in a relationship-driven market, it can be the difference between a stalled project and a closed deal.
Colliers Engineering & Design distinguishes itself through the extensive range of in-house expertise available within a single partnership. Services such as civil, environmental, structural, architectural, surveying, and wastewater, among others, can all be accessed through one reliable point of contact. “When a stop-work order hits due to an unexpected environmental issue, the team mobilizes immediately. When a structural problem surfaces mid-project, the answer is an internal call, not a weeks-long search for a new consultant,” Guerrero emphasized.
For a private developer operating lean, that kind of integrated support from an engineering firm is a strategic advantage.
About the Expert
Emiliano Guerrero, PE, Texas Regional Manager, Civil/Site, has more than two decades of experience in commercial, residential, and industrial land development across Texas. He holds a civil engineering degree from UTSA, and now leads the Civil/Site team for Colliers Engineering & Design in Texas.
Guerrero has successfully guided multi-million-dollar investments from initial land acquisition through final construction and community operations. His broad technical background, combined with his leadership as a licensed Professional Engineer, positions him as a trusted advisor to clients navigating the challenges of today’s development landscape.
Emiliano Guerrero, PE, Texas Regional Manager for Civil/Site, will be at Bisnow’s San Antonio Construction, Design and Development Panel on August 11.