In a real estate project involving a building to be constructed with
150 apartments what proportion of the developers costs would typically
pay for the land?

To illustrate this with a concrete example,  let's suppose a new
building is constructed in New York City with 150 apartments in a nine
story building.  Suppose a similar building on the same street was
sold out at an average price of four hundred thousand dollars per
apartment.  Thus the total sales for the new apartment are expected to be
$60 million.  What part of this $60 million would the developer pay
for the land?  Assume the land has suitable zoning for the proposed
building.

Real estate developments are typically based on a return to two
separate entities.  A return to land value or land cost and a return
to development costs (site and structural improvements, soft costs,
developers profit if available).  Returns to land costs/value are
typically lower than improvements because site and structural
improvements have a finite life span.

It is possible to extract land value from a sale of an improved
property.  Several methods are discussed below.

Extraction is a method where the depreciated costs of the improvements
is deducted from the total sale price of the property to arrive at the
land value.  Extraction is used to estimate the land value of improved
properties in rural areas and properties in which the improvements
contribute little to the total property value.  If replacement cost
and depreciation estimates are readily available this method can also
be used in urban areas.

Allocation is based on typical ratios of land value to improvement
value for specific categories of real estate in specific locations. 
Allocation is useful when transactional data on comparable sites in
the immediate area is not available.  The typical land value can be
inferred by the price range of improved properties in the immediate
area if an appropriate allocation ratio can be established in the
community for a specific property type.

Ground rent capitalization is applicapable when the ground rent
corresponds to the owners interest in the land, the leased fee
interest; applied by capitalizing ground rent at a market derived
rate.  This method is useful when comparable rents, rates and factors
can be developed from an analysis of sales of leased land.

To completely answer the question more information would be required
such as local required returns to improvements and land value,
depreciated cost information or more sales to complete an allocation
method.

Improved, fully leased properties are generally sold on the basis of
an overall return to capital invested (net operating income divided by
purchase equals capitalization rate).

Hope this helps...

Nick87-ga