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Real Estate Financial Modeling Accelerator (Updated March 2024)

Prior to launching the Accelerator program, Michael and I fielded email after email requesting a more structured real estate financial modeling training program on the site. Over the years, we've covered hundreds of real estate modeling…
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Modeling a Property Tax Abatement in Real Estate (Updated Jan 2024)

We often field questions about how to model property tax abatements. It's a concept we cover in our the 'Advanced Modeling - Property and Portfolio' endorsement in our Accelerator real estate financial modeling training program and something…
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Using an IRR Matrix to Determine Hold Period (Updated Dec 2023)

When building a real estate financial pro forma, it's important to model for and include a summary of various return and risk metrics. Among the different return metrics, the internal rate of return (IRR) - both on an unlevered and levered…
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Actual + Forecast Construction Draw Schedule with S-Curve (Updated Dec 2023)

Several times in the last month, I've been asked to tackle an interesting real estate financial modeling challenge - pare actual construction draw cash flows with s-curve cash flow forecasts to create an Actuals + Forecast Construction Draw…
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Calculate Residual Land Value in Excel (Updated Jul 2023)

Here's the scenario. You're a real estate developer. You spot a prime parcel of land that would be perfect for your real estate project. So you approach the owner of the land about selling and she says, "Okay, bring me an offer." How much do…
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The Circuit Breaker – How to Fix Circular Reference Errors in Excel

If you've spent much time working with elaborate Excel workbooks that rely on iterative calculations to solve formulas with circular logic, you've undoubtedly come across a problem where if you accidently put an erroneous value in an input…
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Create A Dynamic Revenue Row to Calculate Multiple Tenant Leases (Updated Nov 2022)

I recently received an email from one of our readers asking how to create a dynamic revenue row for a pro forma that can capture rent changes for multiple tenants. I thought that this would make a great post for the site and would be a good…
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Watch Me Build – American-Style Real Estate Equity Waterfall (Updated Jun 2022)

A few years ago, I recorded my screen as I built a 3-tier real estate equity waterfall model. What I didn't mention in that Watch Me Build video, is that the kind of waterfall I built is colloquially called a European-style equity waterfall.…
a shopping center with robust sales and low occupancy cost
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Tenant Sales and Occupancy Cost in Retail Underwriting (UPDATED JUNE 2022)

When underwriting a retail investment, rollover risk is an incredibly important consideration. You, as a prospective debt or equity investor in the property, need to understand how secure the cash flows you're buying are; or in other words,…
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Scenario Analysis Tool using the Equity Waterfall Model (UPDATED MAY 2022)

I received a question this morning asking how to use scenario (or sensitivity) analysis with our Real Estate Equity Waterfall Model. I started to answer the question via email, decided to build an Excel file to go along with my answer, and ultimately…
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Hide and Unhide Tabs using Drop-down Menus in Excel (UPDATED MAY 2022)

I'd like to share a handy little trick I learned this week for hiding and unhiding tabs in Excel using drop-down menus. Now this method requires you to use some basic VBA code and to save the Workbook as a Macro-Enabled file but don't be intimidated…
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4-Tier Equity Multiple Waterfall – Download and Watch Me Build (UPDATED APR 2022)

Here is a simple, yet very powerful, 4-tier equity multiple waterfall module. This post contains both a completed version of the module ready to plug into a real estate financial model as well as a 'Watch Me Build' template and companion video…
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Setting Up a New Real Estate Financial Model – Date and Period Headers Plus Formatting (Updated Apr 2022)

We've spent a lot of time here discussing and sharing different real estate models, and we've received a ton of feedback from our readers as a result. In some of that feedback we've received, several people have asked what period and date rows…
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Construction Draw Schedule: Accounting For True LTC (Updated Apr 2022)

When lenders provide debt for a development project, they lend based on a Loan-to-Cost ratio (LTC), which is simply the percent of the total budget the lender will agree to lend to the borrower. So, if a project costs $10MM, and a lender loans…
real estate professional using the income approach, a financial tool to value income producing property
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A.CRE 101: How to Use the Income Capitalization Approach to Value Income-Producing Property (Updated Apr 2022)

In commercial real estate, there are a few generally accepted methods for appraising (or valuing) real property. The three most common are the Cost Approach, the Sales Comparison Method, and the Income Approach. The Income Approach includes…
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Convert Monthly Cash Flows to Quarterly and Annual Cash Flows (Updated Mar 2022)

Over the past few years, I've been working to build an ARGUS DCF alternative in Excel - or otherwise known here as the A.CRE All-in-One (Ai1) Model. As I've worked on that model, I've been jotting down modeling techniques I use and think would…