The economics of underwriting are set by how cheaply you can say no
Most deals do not close. So the real cost is not the one you buy — it is the eight you looked at first, and how much each of those cost you to decline.
The maths nobody runs on their own process
Say a first pass takes an afternoon. At that price you only run it on deals that already look promising, which means two things happen quietly.
The deals you decline are declined on the flyer — on a document written by someone paid to sell them. And the deals you pursue were selected by the same document.
Drop the cost of a first pass to minutes and the filter changes character entirely. You are no longer choosing which deals deserve underwriting; you are underwriting everything and letting the model do the choosing. That is a different pipeline, not a faster version of the same one.
Most declines are one of five things
A screening pass is not a full diligence exercise and does not pretend to be. It is looking for the single solid reason that makes the rest of the work unnecessary.
- The cap rate does not survive the rent rollA stated figure computed on income the leases do not support is the most common and the fastest to find.
- Concentration or clustered rolloverOne tenant over your threshold, or half the income expiring in a single year inside the hold.
- The debt does not size to the priceDebt yield usually binds before DSCR does, and a deal that will not finance is not a deal at any price you were offered.
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A decline needs one reason. A commitment needs all of them.
This asymmetry is why fast screening is defensible and fast committing is not. You can say no confidently on a single finding; you cannot say yes without the rest of the work.
- Spend the saved time on the survivorsThe point is not to underwrite more deals badly. It is to run real diligence on the two that are worth it instead of thinly across ten.
- Keep the ones you passed onA deal you declined at one price is a deal you already understand when it comes back at another.
The asking price implies a cap rate the in-place rent roll does not reach on any basis reconstructable from the documents provided, and the gap is not explained by lease-up.
Why
- Stated cap computed on pro-forma NOI with no vacancy allowance
- 23% of base rent sits on leases already past expiry
What would change it
- Re-engage if the price moves to reflect in-place income
Questions people ask
Can I bulk import a pipeline?
No. Deals are created one at a time from their documents. The claim here is not that there is a queue processor — it is that a single first pass is cheap enough that running it on everything stops being a decision you have to justify.
How fast is a first pass really?
The slow part of underwriting is getting terms out of paper, and that is the part that is automated. On a normal multi-tenant deal with an offering memorandum and a few leases, you are looking at a model in minutes rather than an afternoon.
Is a fast pass good enough to decline on?
To decline, usually yes — declining is the cheap decision and it only needs one solid reason. To commit, no, and nothing here suggests otherwise. The point of a fast pass is to spend your real diligence on the two deals that survive it rather than spreading it across ten.
What does a screening pass actually catch?
A stated cap rate the rent roll does not support, income sitting on expired leases, concentration above your threshold, rollover clustered inside the hold period, and debt that does not size to the price. Most declines are one of those five.
Can I keep the deals I declined?
Yes, and it is worth doing. A deal you passed on at one price is a deal you already understand if it comes back six months later at another one.
Where this goes next
Decide whether to buy
The full job, for the ones that survive screening.
Check whether an OM is honest
Usually the fastest reason to decline.
Upload & auto-build
Why a first pass costs minutes instead of an afternoon.
AI deal analysis
The written read at the end of each pass.
How to analyze a deal
The screening framework itself.
Pricing
What a pipeline's worth of deals costs.
Underwrite the one you were about to skip.
Drop in the documents and get a defensible first read in minutes. If it fails, you learned that cheaply; if it survives, you already have the model. Free plan, no credit card.