Entries by Spencer Burton

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All-in-One (Ai1) Model for Underwriting Development and Acquisitions (Updated July 2025)

As many of you recall, in 2015 I set out to build an Excel alternative to the widely-used (and now discontinued) ARGUS DCF. With career moves and a lot of other A.CRE-related side projects, this undertaking has been slow going. Alas, in 2016 I released the first beta-version of the model – my All-in-One (Ai1) […]

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Single Family Home Construction Pro Forma for Home Builders (Updated July 2025)

I’m often asked to share models centered around residential development and home building. This is an area of real estate I’m completely comfortable in, since I spent the first 10 years of my career in new residential development. Not surprisingly, I’ve assembled a decent size library of Excel pro formas for land developers and home […]

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A.CRE Value-Add Apartment Acquisition Model (Updated Jun 2025)

We’ve shared a handful of apartment models over the years. Several of those are capable of analyzing apartment acquisitions but none was built for the express purpose of modeling value-add apartment deals. As a result, each has its limitations in value-add scenarios. So today, I’m excited to share a new apartment model; this one built […]

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Office Real Estate Development Model (Updated Jun 2025)

I’m excited to share my Office Development Model in Excel. This pro forma analysis tool comes as I’ve continued to build and share specialty real estate models, tailor-made for specific investment scenarios and property types. This model is an adaptation of my Industrial Development Model. It’s specifically built to analyze both merchant-build and build-to-core, ground-up […]

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Land Development Model – Multi-Scenario (Updated Jun 2025)

Over the years, we’ve shared eight development-focused real estate financial models and numerous development-specific tools to the A.CRE Library of Excel Models. Nevertheless, there’s been a hole in the development offerings in our library. The library has been missing a model to analyze general land development scenarios, such as master-planned residential and commercial developer opportunities […]

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Why I Chose a Masters in Real Estate over an MBA (Updated 2025)

Going back to graduate school is a huge commitment. First there’s the admissions process, which means spending hours and hours studying for the GMAT or GRE, filling out lengthy admissions applications, writing dozens of mindless essays, preparing for and doing informal and formal admissions interviews, and enduring the stress of not knowing if you’re in, or […]

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Watch Me Build a Residential Land Development Model (Updated June 2025)

Over the years, we’ve created a sizable library of Watch Me Build videos covering Excel models for various real estate investment and property types. However, we’ve yet to create a Watch Me Build involving for-sale product. So this weekend, I thought I’d sit down and record myself building a residential land development model. The exercise […]

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Single Tenant NNN Lease Valuation Model (Updated May 2025)

I originally built this single tenant net lease (NNN) valuation Excel model back in 2016. Based on some feedback from a few of our readers, I’ve since made quite a few updates (see v2.0 updates video below). This model is an attempt to re-think how the industry underwrites single-tenant net lease investments. The model is […]

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How I Built a Real Estate DCF Web App with AI in Five Minutes

Over the past year, we’ve been experimenting heavily with (and successfully using) AI coding tools to push the boundaries of what’s possible in commercial real estate. We’ve used v0 to quickly scope frontend designs, and we’ve spun up various web apps using tools like Replit, Bolt.new, Lovable, and Cursor to support everything from content creation […]