I thought I’d share a few thoughts that came to mind as Michael and Sam were in town recording the latest season of the A.CRE Audio Series. We spent a lot of time talking about AI – what’s real and what’s not, where it might take the industry, and how it’s already reshaping our work. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Over the past seven years, we’ve built the Accelerator into what it is today: a well-structured, case-based program designed to teach real estate financial modeling the way it’s actually used in the industry. Along the way, we’ve created thousands of hours of video content, authored hundreds of lessons, and responded to over 2,000 member questions […]
When downloading and opening an Excel model from A.CRE, some users may get the ominous message: “Microsoft has blocked macros from running because the source of this file is untrusted.” If you’ve received this message, you’re probably asking, “Why did this message appear, and can I use the file without macros?” In this tutorial, I’ll […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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. […]