ZMG Group · Zoran Gacesa

Turning
Bricks
into Gold

London Property Development: 30 Years in the Trenches

Thirty years of profitable London residential development — the sites, the structures, the deals, and the thinking — set out in full for the first time.

Buy the book What's inside
THE LONDON DEVELOPER'S GUIDE Turning Bricks into Gold London Property Development: 30 Years in the Trenches DEVELOPING WITHOUT A PENNY OF YOUR OWN 30 30 YEARS · LONDON RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS 30+ YEARS EXPERIENCE 30%+ AVERAGE PROFIT ON GDV 15 months AVERAGE BUILD PERIOD ZORAN GACESA DEVELOPING · 30 YEARS IN LONDON 30 Years of Profitable London Development www.z-m-g.com
NowAvailable
30+Years London development
30%+Average profit on GDV
15 moAverage build period
£0Starting capital required

About the book

You don't need a penny of your own to develop in London.

Most people assume property development requires substantial personal capital. It doesn't. What it requires is the right knowledge — of how to find sites others miss, how to structure deals that use other people's money, and how to add value that makes everyone in the deal want to work with you again.

Zoran Gacesa has been doing exactly this in London for over thirty years, averaging more than thirty percent profit on Gross Development Value across a portfolio of residential projects — without ever waiting to accumulate starting capital of his own.

This book sets out how. Not in theory. In the specific, practical detail that comes from three decades of doing it.

Inside this book

  • How to find development sites others overlook
  • Feasibility, design and planning permission
  • Developing without a penny of your own
  • Joint ventures and sleeping equity partners
  • Real case studies with real numbers

Who this book is for

Two very different readers.
One blueprint.

01

The aspiring developer

This book shows you how to develop without a penny of your own. The sites are out there. The structures exist. What most aspiring developers lack is not capital — it is the framework to act with confidence. This is that framework.

02

The passive investor

If you have capital to allocate and you're interested in development returns without managing a project, this book explains how deals are structured from the inside. It gives you the language, the questions, and the benchmarks to evaluate an operator and decide whether to back them.

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  • Complete text — no abridgement
  • Real case studies with real numbers
  • Access to online resource library at z-m-g.com
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Order physical copy — £19.99

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Also available on Amazon Kindle and paperback · Published by ZMG Group

"

It was an evening in the early 1990s. My wife and I arrived at a grand North London mansion — a property I had spent two years transforming into something extraordinary.

The owner invited us to dinner. Then he walked us outside. Sitting on the driveway, under the London night sky, was a brand-new BMW. He placed the keys in my hand.

"This is for you," he said. "You created something remarkable here."

I was stunned. The total project cost, including purchase, had been £3 million. On completion, Lloyds Bank valued it at £5 million. But standing there, keys in hand, what struck me most was not the valuation — nor the car.

It was a single, defining thought:

If I can create this much value for someone else,
I can create it for myself.

This book shows you how.

— From the introduction

About the author

Zoran Gacesa

London property developer · ZMG Group · z-m-g.com

Zoran Gacesa is a London-based property developer with over thirty years of experience in residential development across the capital. With an architectural background and experience in leading London architectural practices, he made the transition to development in the early 1990s after successfully delivering a complex luxury residential project for a high-net-worth client — a project that generated a £2 million increase in value and resulted in Lloyds Bank valuing the completed property at £5 million against a total development cost of £3 million.

Since then, he has completed many residential developments across London, consistently targeting small to medium-scale sites that are too complex for amateur developers and too small for large PLC housebuilders. His strategy — described in this book — has produced an average profit of over thirty percent on Gross Development Value across his portfolio, with an average on-site build period of fifteen months.

His architectural background has been central to his development approach, allowing him to design value-maximising solutions, navigate complex planning situations, and solve structural and engineering challenges — including the discovery of a large Victorian culvert directly beneath a proposed house foundation — with creativity and efficiency.

He is based in London and continues to develop residential properties in the capital. Enquiries at z-m-g.com.

Ready to start?

Get the blueprint.
Start building.

Whether you're taking your first steps into London development or looking for a credible operator to partner with, this is where it begins.

Buy the book Visit z-m-g.com