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Real Estate Financial Modeling Accelerator (Updated June 2026)

Before launching the Accelerator program, Michael and I received countless emails requesting a more structured, step-by-step real estate financial modeling training program. Over the years, we've covered hundreds of real estate modeling…
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How to Use the Construction Draw and Interest Calculation Model

As promised, I've recorded a tutorial on how to use my construction draw and interest calculation model. The 20 minute tutorial walks you through how to use the model to forecast construction cash flows during your development period. The model…
equity multiple
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Real Estate Waterfall Model – Equity Multiple Hurdles

I've created a companion to my real estate equity waterfall model to work with equity multiple hurdles, rather than IRR hurdles. It took me longer than I expected to build this, largely because I was over thinking it. I messed around with…
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Understanding Leases: Office Buildings – Part 2b

Grossing Up Reimbursable Expenses in ARGUS This post and video are a follow up to a post written back in late October discussing grossing up reimbursable expenses. If you haven’t gotten to read that yet, you can do so by clicking here:…
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Apartment Valuation Tutorial Using the Real Estate Acquisition Model

I promised a how-to video for my real estate apartment acquisition model, and so I thought I'd use an actual property to do so. I grabbed a property from Loopnet that is currently for sale, and dropped the information from the listing into…
Excel 2016
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Disable Animations – Excel 2013 (and Presumably in Excel 2016)

If you recently upgraded from Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 to either Excel 2013 or Excel 2016 for Windows, you've probably noticed a change that can be quite distracting (and even annoying!). Microsoft Excel now animates certain actions as you work.…
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Understanding Leases: Office Buildings – Part 2a

Grossing Up Operating Expenses – What, How, Why, and its impact on the Three Common Bill-back Methods A common practice in office leases is to gross up the variable portion of the reimbursable expenses. Grossing up expenses is when the…
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Understanding Leases: Office Buildings – Part 1

Billing Back Reimbursable Operating Expenses – Three Common Approaches for Office Buildings (ARGUS video example to follow next week) The three most common approaches to expense reimbursements in office leases are the (1) triple-net,…
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Another Shot at Stuy Town – Blackstone’s $5.3 Billion Bet

Styuvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, otherwise known as Stuy Town, is back in real estate news. Blackstone, together with Ivanhoe Cambridge and CWCapital Asset Management, have agreed to buy the 11,232-unit apartment complex for…
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Introducing a New Blog Segment: Understanding Leases

We are rolling out a new segment this week called Understanding Leases. The aim is to help our readers learn about the more nuanced and unique concepts to commercial real estate leasing and provide general tips and understanding. Over time we…
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CRE Market Spotlight: Camden, NJ

After decades of being statistically one of the poorest cities in the country, it seems there are finally big changes coming to the city of Camden, NJ. With an extensive and generous state sponsored tax credit program luring big businesses to…
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MS Excel Alternative to ARGUS DCF

It is little secret among our readers that I view ARGUS DCF as a necessary evil. On the one hand, it is the industry standard for underwriting real estate. Virtually every broker package for institutional quality deals comes with an ARGUS run,…
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How to Use My Real Estate Equity Waterfall Model

I took a few minutes this weekend, and created a video to help you use my real estate equity waterfall (IRR hurdle technique) model that I built in Excel. Again, keep in mind that the model is not standalone, but can be used with any of the…
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Update to Portfolio Acquisition Model

I've updated my Portfolio Acquisition Model to include the following changes: - Added an "Investor Level Returns" tab to the model, which uses my Real Estate Equity Waterfall Model to calculate the equity returns of the sponsor (GP) and the…
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Real Estate Development ROI Models

From time to time, I'm asked to share more complex development models that I've used professional. Unfortunately, most of the models that I've used professionally were built in partnership with others, and so I'm not at liberty to share those…
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Free ARGUS DCF Training

UPDATE: ARGUS stopped selling ARGUS DCF at the end of 2015 and will stop supporting the software all together in 2017. The company no longer offers public training for DCF. You'll also note that the YouTube video tutorial for DCF has been taken…