Want a better way to track what’s happening in CRE markets—before traditional metrics catch up? We’re partnering with Marquette University to build a powerful new AI-powered metric called the Real Estate Headline Sentiment Index (REHSI) —and we need 30-seconds of your time to help guide it (and in return, we’ll get you free early access!). […]
A few days ago, I came across this internal memo from Shopify’s CEO, Tobi Lütke, which he decided to publicly share because it was already in the process of being leaked. The memo was honest, direct, and (to me) deeply resonant. “Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify.” That line stopped me […]
AI is here. And while the buzz can be overwhelming, don’t mistake noise for irrelevance. In commercial real estate, artificial intelligence is already reshaping how work gets done. Yes, the technology has limits, and yes, it’s often misunderstood. But those who grasp both its shortcomings and its strengths—and learn to strategically apply AI in their […]
When building a real estate financial model, managing income and expense growth is rarely as simple as applying a fixed growth rate year over year. In real estate investment analysis, growth assumptions need to be flexible, dynamic, and reflective of real-world realities. One common challenge is modeling irregular growth rates, where: Growth occurs annually but […]
In 2018, Michael and I designed and built the A.CRE Accelerator program. Our goal was to create the preeminent tool for mastering real estate financial modeling—a program that would provide a clear path to expertise and give Accelerator Graduates a significant edge in the industry. Now, as we celebrate the Accelerator’s evolution and its impact […]
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 […]
A few years back, on a sleepy Saturday afternoon while my kids were busy eating Halloween candy, I decided to create a simple real estate acquisition model in Excel for office, retail, and industrial deals. Since then, I’ve made various updates, including error fixes and functional improvements. The model calculates returns at the property and […]
Why use COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, and AVERAGEIFS functions in real estate? When real estate analysts first start their careers, they’re often required to work with large data sets and to transpose property and portfolio information from one format to another in Excel. At first, being unfamiliar with many of Excel’s functions, they manually perform these operations. […]
At A.CRE, we’re always on the lookout for tools that can streamline our workflow and make our jobs a little easier. As the AI space evolves, OpenAI has rolled out two features that we’ve been putting to work in our day-to-day operations: ChatGPT Projects and Custom GPTs. These two features have unlocked new ways for […]
A question came up recently in the A.CRE Accelerator’s real estate waterfall modeling course regarding how to model GP Catch Up (i.e. Sponsor Catch Up) and LP Clawback provisions. I put together a quick video tutorial in response to that question, and in doing so I realized I had never shared to A.CRE a real […]
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 […]
At A.CRE, we’re always exploring new ways to make our work more efficient for you and for us! Whether it’s building custom GPTs for real estate, experimenting with locally installed LLMs, or finding AI-specific tools for commercial real estate, we love to tinker. Recently, we hit on something we’ve been wanting for a while: a […]
We’re often asked by our readers how we learned to be proficient in real estate financial modeling. The question usually arises because the person wants to know how to model real estate in Excel to either land a job in commercial real estate (e.g., private equity, development, acquisition, debt) or to analyze their own deals. […]