For almost 20 years I have been accompanying investors and developers active in real estate overseas.
Over the years I saw and learned a great deal, from their successes, from the mishaps along the way, from the creative solutions each one found, and also from the failures of some.
And then, a little before COVID, I decided to jump into the water myself.
To stop being only the lawyer who protects the investor, and become a developer myself.
I thought I knew everything.
After all, I had accompanied over 300 deals, read thousands of contracts, represented before authorities in quite a few countries.
But only when I became a developer myself did I understand how little I truly knew.
Real estate development is not a long-distance run.
It is agriculture.
You sow time, thought, investment and planning,
and only after years, if you were lucky (and also exercised judgment), do you begin to reap.
It takes patience.
Consistent watering.
Meticulous care and quiet perseverance over time.
But with time I learned an important rule: celebrate the small victories.
Did I sign a financing agreement?
Did I find a suitable contractor?
Did the first buyer show interest?
These are small moments that keep you alive between the ups and downs along the way.
Because the truth is, luck smiles only on the persistent.
It reminds me of the words of the Israeli band Shabak Samech:
“Falls and gets up.”
It's not just a song. It's the unofficial biography of every international real estate developer I know.
It doesn't matter whether you're buying a rental apartment in Florida or initiating a project in Greece,
you will fall.
Someone will be late with a payment.
An authority will ask for one more document.
A contractor will disappear.
And you will get up.
Because if you don't, there's no one who will do it for you.
And then you understand the simple truth:
Development is not a test of results, but a test of character.
It doesn't ask “how much did you earn,” but “how many times did you get up after you fell.”
Everyone likes to say that abroad it's easier.
That everything is digital, registration is quick, taxation is simple,
but the truth is the exact opposite.
It's not easier, it's simply different.
A different language.
A different culture.
Different laws.
And if you don't surround yourself with a hive of professionals of the highest caliber in their fields,
you don't stand a chance.
The architect, the local lawyer, the accountant, the supervisor, the engineer, the financial adviser,
each of them is a small thread in the net that keeps your whole venture from collapsing.
I understood firsthand that every successful project is not the result of a “big idea,”
but of proper management of small details.
And a few weeks ago it happened.
After almost two years of proceedings, dozens of meetings, endless corrections to the plans,
three rounds of comments from the municipality,
and another surprise in the form of an archaeologist accompanying the excavations,
we finally received our first building permit.
I will not forget that moment.
The phone rang, and the local supervisor said in a Romanian accent:
“Mr. Leibovitch, you can start construction.”
One second of silence, and then I took a deep breath.
Not because the permit changed the world, but because it confirmed the way.
A small proof that all the long nights, the conversations, the corrections, and the despair, were worth it.
I stood that day, together with my partner, facing the empty land,
with one document in hand, and felt as if I were holding the key to the future.
Because a building permit is not just a technical approval.
It is a developer's matriculation certificate.
It says:
You withstood the pressure.
You didn't give up.
You listened, corrected, insisted, and now you are ready for another stage.
Real estate development is a profession of faith.
Not blind faith, but calculated faith.
One backed by checks, by analysis, by fieldwork, and by the right team.
And whoever has survived a few years in the field knows:
It is not a game of who is faster,
but of who is willing to continue even when everything seems stuck.
Therefore today, when I accompany other developers, I tell them one simple thing:
Stop looking for the shortcut.
Start building the road.
Because in the end, as in agriculture - whoever isn't afraid to get his hands dirty is the one who reaps the fruit.
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית