Real View Academy is a series of programs for aspiring developers — from a weekend intro seminar to a six-month residency with a live project. Led by a licensed architect who has purchased, financed, designed, built and sold over 100 ground-up projects in Chicago and near suburbs.
Every Real View Academy student lands on the same final question: is this actually for me? We've built three programs so you can answer that honestly — at the level of commitment that fits where you are.
An intro seminar for the curious. Leave knowing whether this life is actually for you.
Four Sundays that turn you from spreadsheet dreamer to deal-ready.
Eight deep sessions over six months. You work on a live project. You leave with a deal.
| Feature | Developer's Weekend | Sunday Series | Residency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | 1 day (6 hours) | 4 weeks | 6 months |
| Total instruction | 6 hours | ~16 hours | ~40+ hours |
| Chicago market fundamentals | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Chicago zoning deep dive | Primer | ✓ Full | ✓ Full + applied |
| Pro forma modeling workshop | — | ✓ | ✓ On a live deal |
| Capital stack & lender intro | — | ✓ | ✓ Active introductions |
| In-person Chicago field days | — | 1 walk | Ongoing |
| Capstone deal pitch review | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Work on a live project | — | — | ✓ |
| 1:1 coaching with Prashanth | — | — | ✓ Monthly |
| Alumni network access | — | 3 months | 6 months + priority |
| Cohort size | 10 max | 12 max | 6 max |
| Investment | $895 | $2,495 | $9,995 |
The Developer's Weekend exists to help you answer one question: is this life actually for me? Most seminars are sales funnels dressed up as education. This one is the opposite — it's built to let some people walk away saying "not for me, and that's a relief."
Six hours, one Chicago conference room, ten people, lunch in the middle. You'll leave knowing the shape of the business, the real math behind a first deal, and whether you want to spend the next year of your life chasing one. The intimate cohort size means every question gets answered and no one hides in the back row.
The five archetypes that show up to this seminar — agent, architect, contractor, investor, dreamer. Where each one breaks. Why most people who want to develop never start, and what separates the ones who do.
What moves value in this city. Submarkets, block-by-block dynamics, the neighborhoods you should never touch, and the ones nobody is talking about yet. A zoning primer — enough to read a lot listing like a developer.
Catered lunch on-site. No agenda. Honest conversation about where you are, what you want, and whether this is the right move. This is often the part of the day people remember most.
What a first deal really earns. What the second deal earns. The real timeline from first site visit to cleared check. How to know if you have the runway — and the uncomfortable conversation about what this does to the next 18 months of your life.
Open floor. Bring any question. We close by talking honestly about who should continue with the Sunday Series, who should wait, and who should walk away — and why any of those is a good answer.
The Sunday Series is the heart of Real View Academy. Four consecutive Sundays, four hours each, covering the full arc from site selection to disposition. This is for people who already know they want to develop but need the framework, the math, and the confidence to pick a site and run it.
Sessions 1–3 are live on Zoom so you can attend from anywhere. Session 3 includes an in-person Chicago field walk on the Saturday before — half a day touring three contrasting lots where we underwrite each one out loud. Session 4 is your capstone: you pitch a real deal, and Prashanth gives you the same feedback he'd give a JV partner.
The developer mindset. How to walk a Chicago block and see the deal. Feasibility frameworks, submarket reading, and the five questions that kill a bad site before you waste a week on it.
R3, R5, RT4, ADU ordinance, variance strategy, and alderman relationships. How to read the zoning map like someone who has been denied before. The timeline from ZBA filing to approval.
Saturday: half-day in-person Chicago walk — three lots, three underwrites, done out loud on the sidewalk. Sunday: line-by-line build of a duplex pro forma in Excel. Every student leaves with the template.
Morning: the capital stack — debt, equity, JVs, personal guarantees, with a guest Chicago lender joining for Q&A. Afternoon: every student pitches their underwritten deal. Prashanth gives real, deal-meeting feedback.
Most coaching programs end with a certificate. The Development Residency ends with a deal. Over six months, each resident works directly alongside Prashanth on a live Chicago project — from site selection through closing statement — while completing eight deep teaching sessions that tie the textbook to the actual transaction.
This is not a spectator program. Residents participate in real decisions on real projects: reviewing pro formas, attending lender meetings, sitting in on design reviews with PMPC, walking construction with the GC. You'll see the parts of a deal that nobody writes about — the call where a lender pulls back, the moment a variance hearing goes sideways, the text thread with the contractor at 6 AM.
Because residents participate in live deals, we keep the cohort to six and require an application and interview. If it's not the right fit for you or for us, we say so honestly.
Cohort kickoff. Each resident is matched with an active project. We review the deal thesis, the capital stack, and the role you'll play over the next six months.
You underwrite your assigned project from scratch. Prashanth marks it up. Every number gets defended or redone. By the end, you understand where rookie underwriting goes wrong.
Deep Chicago zoning workshop applied to your deal. If the project needs a variance, you'll sit in on the strategy session. If it doesn't, you'll see why we chose an "as of right" path.
Residents sit in on live lender conversations (with NDAs). See how terms actually get negotiated, and how PMPC structures JV agreements. Guest bank intros.
Full day inside PMPC. Design review for your assigned project, permit status walkthrough, and GC bid review. You'll see the architect and developer sides of the same project.
On-site at your project. Walk the build with the GC. Review the schedule, the pay apps, and the change orders. Learn what actually blows up a budget and what's just noise.
Pricing strategy, broker selection, staging decisions, MLS timing. We'll dissect how recent PMPC projects got sold — including the $3.525M Racine View duplex.
The capstone. Each resident presents their own first deal — site identified, numbers underwritten, capital plan drafted. Prashanth and a guest panel give the same feedback a deal committee would. Many residents' first deals get initial capital commitments right here.
One hour each month, dedicated to your own deal pipeline. Bring any site, any pro forma, any tricky decision. This is where residency pays for itself.
Intro seminars run monthly. Sunday Series runs quarterly. The Residency launches twice a year.
Prashanth Mahakali, AIA has spent two decades at the intersection of architecture and real estate development. As principal of PMPC Architects and co-founder of Real View DD and Real View Properties, he designs, builds, and sells ground-up residential projects across Chicago — then teaches from what actually closed.
Most real estate coaches are agents or investors. Prashanth has stamped drawings, filed Chicago zoning variances, managed GC crews, and sat across from lenders with his own signature on the note. The curriculum reflects that reality: what the pro formas hide, where entitlements stall, and how to close a deal when the comps disagree with you.
"The difference between a curriculum and a career is one real deal. The Residency exists so that the coursework becomes your first project — with someone who has done this before sitting next to you.
— Prashanth Mahakali, AIA · Founder, Real View Academy
A short application gets you on a 20-minute call with our team — no hard sell. We'll help you pick the tier that matches where you are. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you.
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