Creating intuitive, user-friendly, visually appealing models is one aspect of mastering real estate financial modeling. One way to make your models easy for people to use and more attractive in general is to use dynamic, theme-appropriate, in-cell buttons (ie. a button that changes text, font, background based on certain logic) and toggles (i.e. buttons to […]
I’m regularly asked to expand my single family home construction pro forma to analyze the construction of more than one home. I’ve contemplated adding that functionality to the model, but it is such a custom task that no template could really cover even a majority of multi-home scenarios. So instead, I thought I’d show you […]
In an effort to provide greater instruction on how to use our All-in-One Underwriting Tool for Real Estate Development and Acquisition, we’ve developed a series of walkthrough videos and posts on the methodology behind the various components of the model. This walkthrough, our first in the series, will detail how the Permanent Debt Module is […]
Your real estate financial models are only as good as their ability to be used by others. Or in other words, if others can’t figure out how to use your model, it isn’t worth much! So when building real estate financial model templates, besides using Modeling Best Practices, I personally employ a variety of techniques […]
A concept common to real estate partnership structures, preferred return refers to the preference given to a certain class of equity partners when distributing available cash flow. The preferred return is generally calculated as either a percentage return on contributed capital or a given multiple on contributed capital, and must first be paid before common […]
Over the next few minutes, I’ll share a great modeling tip for efficiently visualizing the more salient metrics in your real estate models. Now I should mention, this is a tip I shared a few years ago. But given the complexity of many of the models in our Library of Real Estate Excel models, I […]
In this ‘Day in the Life of a Commercial Real Estate Professional’ post, we hear from an EVP/Asset Manager working at a Family Office in California where this person has been located for the last 2 years. This professional has been kind enough to share what he/she does on a daily basis as well as […]
In a previous post, I showed you how to use the OFFSET function to create dynamic lists in Excel. As you become more comfortable using this function in real estate financial modeling, you’ll find that it has almost infinite applications when modeling real estate investments. In this tutorial, I share two more ways you might […]
One Excel feature real estate financial modeling professionals use often is the data validation list. Where data validation is a method of limiting the possible inputs of a cell, the data validation list limits those inputs to a pre-defined list created by the financial modeling professional. In real estate financial modeling, these lists are essential […]
Most of the real estate financial models we’ve shared over the years are dynamic to analysis period. Meaning, we’ve included an input to adjust the length of the analysis period, and the model will adjust the results accordingly. This is a helpful feature to sensitive returns relative to exit, but presents some complications from a […]
I was recently asked the question whether it’s possible to add more other income or operating expense line items to the MF-OpSt or ORI-OpSt worksheets in my All-in-One Model for Underwriting Acquisitions and Development. Short answer is: out of the box this is not supported. Or in other words, there’s not a button you can […]
The more time you spend modeling real estate in Excel, the more important keyboard shortcuts become. It’s partly about speed – using keyboard shortcuts is much faster than using the mouse. But it’s also about impressing your peers; whether you admit it or not! In fact, I remember the first time I watched a true […]
We’re celebrating some much deserved time off from work, and so what better way to spend the time than to make a completely unnecessary (but fun!) Excel model. I call this the indispensable Excel tool for the overly indecisive, and it’s basically an Excel model to help that indecisive group choose a restaurant or bar for that […]
Several years ago, we published a careers in real estate series where we discussed the various job sectors, business fields, and job functions that exist in the real estate industry. Additionally, we broke down compensation in real estate (salary + bonus) by position and level for 2014. Since then, each year we’ve followed up that series with a summary look at pay in […]
Using keyboard shortcuts is essential to improving the speed and efficiency at which you model real estate in Excel. One thing you’ll learn early in your CRE career, the more proficient you become in using your keyboard without a mouse to navigate around Excel, the more valuable you’ll be as a real estate financial analyst. […]