Real estate development, or property development, is a multifaceted business, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of improved land or parcels to others. Developers are the coordinators of the activities, converting ideas on paper into real property. Real estate development is different from construction, although many developers also construct. Developer Louis Lesser drew the distinction in a 1963 New York Times article, "Developing is the key word. 'We don't build ourselves', Mr. Lesser stresses. 'We buy the land, finance the deal, and then we have the best builders build under bond at a fixed cost.'"

Developers buy land, finance real estate deals, build or have builders build projects, create, imagine, control and orchestrate the process of development from the beginning to end. Developers usually take the greatest risk in the creation or renovation of real estate—and receive the greatest rewards. Typically, developers purchase a tract of land, determine the marketing of the property, develop the building program and design, obtain the necessary public approval and financing, build the structure, and lease, manage, and ultimately sell it. Developers work with many different counterparts along each step of this process, including architects, city planners, engineers, surveyors, inspectors, contractors, leasing agents and more. In the Town and Country Planning context of the UK, 'development' is defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 s55.

Sarah Lucinda Beeny (born 9 January 1972) is an English property developer and television presenter, best known for presenting the Channel 4 property shows Property Ladder, Streets Ahead, Britain’s Best Homes, and Help! My House Is Falling Down.

Beeny was born in Reading, Berkshire, to Richard and Ann. Beeny has an elder brother, Diccon. The daughter of an architect for Bovis Homes, her mother loved the self-sustained outdoor life. The family lived in two converted brick cottages in a nine acre plot on the edge of the Duke of Wellington's estate Stratfield Saye, in a style that Beeny describes as "a bit like The Good Life." The family kept goats, chickens and ducks, while her father made Dolls House furniture to raise extra cash: "They were crafty-entrepreneurial but more craft than entrepreneurial."

After her mother died aged 39 of breast cancer when Sarah was aged 10, she was educated as a weekly boarder at the all-girls Luckley-Oakfield School in Wokingham. Although her friends went to university, Sarah did not and was encouraged to study drama by her English teacher, taking a leading role in Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle. Pursuing the idea of becoming a professional actress, she studied drama at Queen Mary's College, Basingstoke, but failed to get into a drama school.