Before you use one of our real estate financial models (i.e. Excel templates), or before you set out to build your own real estate analysis tool in Excel, it’s important to keep in mind a few real estate financial modeling best practices. This list combines industry conventions for modeling in Excel, with various suggestions specific […]
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 […]
So you’ve made it past the HR screening interview. You have the education and experience the company is looking for, but now they want to be sure you possess the real estate financial modeling skills necessary to do the job. They’ve asked you to take part in a multi-hour real estate technical interview. In that interview, they’ll […]
The real estate industry is enormous. In the United States alone, over 2.9 million jobs are tied to commercial real estate, 17% of GDP comes from the real estate industry, and the aggregate value of U.S. commercial real estate is approximately $20.7 trillion. Yet, in spite of its impact and size, there is still a […]
I’m excited to share my Retail 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 Office Development Model and Industrial Development Model. It’s specifically built to analyze both […]
This week, I’ll be hosting my monthly A.CRE Ask Me Anything (AMA) where we dive into various technical topics, and AI in CRE often comes up. Last month, someone asked me to show the group how to install a Large Language Model (LLM) on their computer—essentially a personal ChatGPT that runs locally. So, I figured it […]
Microsoft Excel is the primary tool used by real estate financial modeling professionals. Even while numerous non-Excel alternatives have attempted to de-throne Excel, the 35+ year-old software has shown to be surprisingly resilient to competition. And thus, if you intend to work in real estate you must be proficient in Excel. So what does it […]
It’s been the go-to line ever since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene in 2022 and AI became a talking point in every office: “AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will.” I’ve said that – or some variation of that – myself in dozens of conversations with CRE friends, peers, and clients. And […]
Over the course of my career, I’ve modeled hundreds of real estate investments, from large portfolio roll-ups to complex mixed-use developments. And one issue I’ve consistently run into, especially when modeling portfolio or mixed-use cash flows, is this: the first cash flow in an IRR range is often not negative. The problem? Excel’s built-in XIRR […]
On a flight from Chicago to Miami last week, I built something I’m really excited to share for free: my AI-powered Lease Date Extraction Tool. Starting with a simple ChatGPT prompt, followed by a back-and-forth with Replit’s Agent 3 multi-agent coding assistant, what in the past would have taken a team of engineers months to […]
Before moving to the principal side of the business, I began my career as a self-described real estate investment specialist, largely working as a land broker but dabbling in other areas including the popular “single-family flip” space. In all honesty, I wasn’t qualified for the title. In fact, I had little to no actual experience […]
In the world of AI, the big three – OpenAI’s Custom GPTs, Anthropic’s Claude Projects, and Google’s Gemini Gems – are quick-and-easy ways to interact with large language models (LLMs). Whether you’re a real estate professional looking to build a custom assistant or a founder aiming to scale operations through automation, these tools offer a […]
For several years now, our library of real estate models has been lacking a robust ground-up apartment development model. Sure, our All-in-One (Ai1) model has the capability to model multifamily development deals, but it’s more a generalist tool than a specialized one. As a result, I’ve found it wanting when used to model developments. So a few […]
What better way to spend some free time over the Thanksgiving holiday, than to record myself completing a real estate private equity technical interview exercise! While I’ve offered help with the real estate technical interview in the past, I’ve never just grabbed an actual technical interview case study and walked our readers through how I […]
We’re in a moment where the advantage from being AI native is disproportionately high and the effort to achieve it is surprisingly low. In fact, in most rooms of 10 professionals, the one who’s spent even a few weeks tinkering with AI tools stands out. This post lays out a 30-day roadmap to becoming that […]