DealWise AI user guides

Deals›New deal

Deal name

optional; left blank, the deal is named after its address

Asset class

chosen first, because it decides which sections follow; Land has no rent roll and is priced on what it sells for

Building SF

every per-SF figure is measured against this

"New deal" first asks what you are working on ("I'm evaluating a purchase" or "I'm listing a property"), because the two sides start from different numbers. An acquisition asks for a purchase price and an acquisition date. A listing asks for an asking price, a list date, your commission and a market cap rate in their place. Everything after that is the same on both sides (the same rent roll, the same expenses, the same hold period, financing and exit assumptions), so a listing is modelled exactly the way a buyer would model it. What choosing the listing side does withhold is the AI Deal Analysis, which is written for a buyer and ends in negotiation recommendations aimed at the seller. It is not shown and not run on a listing, and you get a Listing Price Opinion in its place. That choice is made when the deal is created.

Edit deal›Acquisition›Financing

Purchase price

Closing costs

counted in the equity basis, same as the IRR uses

Loan amount

leave blank for an all-cash deal

Interest rate

6.25 means 6.25%, not 0.0625

Amortization (years)

Interest-only period (months)

Price is the denominator of every cap rate. Loan terms drive debt service, and debt service drives the levered IRR, the DSCR under the banner, and the year-1 debt service and break-even occupancy the AI analysis reasons from.

Edit deal›Acquisition

Acquisition date

month one of the projection

Hold period (years)

how long you own it

Every rent step is measured against the acquisition date, and the first month of the projection is the month you close in, prorated for the days you actually own it. Until the date and the hold are both set, the page projects the income from the current month instead, which is enough for Year-1 NOI and, with a price, the going-in cap, but not for the returns.

Edit deal›The market

Asking price to model

required: the price every return is run against

List date

required: month one of the projection

Market cap rate

what comparable buildings are trading at; 6.25 means 6.25%, not 0.0625

Market rent ($/SF/yr)

what space here should let for (a suite can override it)

Commission

total fee

Co-broke split

the co-broker’s share OF the fee, not of the price

The listing side’s answer to the two steps above, and very nearly the whole difference between the sides. A listing has no purchase and no closing, so the asking price is what every return is measured against and the list date is the month the projection opens. Beside them sit the market cap rate the price opinion divides NOI by, and your fee. Everything below this section is identical to an acquisition (the same hold period, the same financing, the same exit assumptions), because the question a listing exists to ask is what a buyer would make at your ask.

Edit deal›The hold

Hold period (years)

how long a buyer is assumed to own it

A listing is modelled the way a buyer would model it, so the hold is the buyer's: how many years of cash flow run before the exit. On a listing it has a section of its own, The hold, just below The market, where a purchase keeps it beside the acquisition date.

Edit deal›Building specifications

Building SF

every per-SF figure measures against this

Year built

Year renovated

Power service

free text, as stated

HVAC

free text: type and age

Clear height (ft)

Dock doors

Drive-in doors

Building SF is what the price per SF beside the purchase price is measured against, and what the occupancy figure in the AI analysis measures the leased suites against.

Deal page›Operating expenses

Category

pick from the list, or Other… to type your own; Taxes, Insurance and CAM tick Tenants reimburse this for you

Annual amount

Expenses come straight out of NOI. There is no fixed list of them: each is a category you name and an annual figure, added and edited inline on the deal page rather than in Edit deal. Whether tenants reimburse a row is a checkbox on that row ("Tenants reimburse this" on the add form, "Recovered" on every saved row), because what a lease reimburses is a term of that lease, not a property of a category name. Choosing taxes, insurance or CAM from the list ticks it for you, and any other category can be ticked too. Lease type still decides what happens to the ticked pool: passed through pro rata on NNN; on Gross and Full Service, absorbed by the landlord unless the suite has a Base year, in which case the tenant pays its share of the increase above that year; metered against the expense stop on Modified Gross. So on a gross-lease building, tick the rows the leases pay increases on; with no base year the landlord absorbs them whether they are ticked or not. An apartment building has no lease types and recovers nothing, ticked or not. A category named reserves is held below the NOI line, which is why it lowers cash flow and leaves the cap rate untouched.

Deal page›Documents›Upload

Upload your rent roll as an Excel .xlsx or a .csv and every row becomes a proposed suite in the document's review: suite, tenant, square feet, lease type, dates, the rent in force, and the next step where the sheet has one. The rows are read directly, not by AI, and the document is filed as a rent roll. Nothing is written until you apply it. The free commercial rent roll template on this site, filled in, reads the same way.

Deal page›Suites›Add suite

Name

101

Tenant

who occupies it

Suite SF

Lease type

NNN, Gross, Modified Gross, Full Service

Commencement

Expiration

Rent ($/SF/yr)

from the commencement date; blank adds it later, on the suite

Vacant

checkbox

Anchor tenant

checkbox: the retail co-tenancy stress test keys on it

NOI is derived from this and never typed in. Every number on the deal page is downstream of what you enter here. Rent ($/SF/yr) on the form becomes the suite's first rent step, starting on the Commencement date: it needs that date and a Suite SF, and is refused on a suite ticked Vacant. Leave it blank to add the rent on the suite afterwards; any later steps go there too.

Deal page›Suites›Add step

Effective date

Rate ($/SF/yr)

annual, not monthly; on a suite with no SF it asks for an annual rent in dollars instead

A suite's rent is a list of dated steps, not an escalation rate. Each step sets the rate that applies from its effective date until the next step, and the engine builds the monthly schedule from them, stopping at the suite's lease expiration. The list shows the percentage bump from one step to the next, so a schedule you typed can be checked at a glance.

Deal page›Suites›Add suite

Name

Suite SF

Vacant

checkbox: leave the tenant and the dates empty

A three-tenant strip with one dark unit is four suites, not three. A vacant suite earns nothing at first and is then leased up: after its months until it leases and its free rent it pays the market rent set under Leasing this space on the suite, or the deal's own market rent where the suite leaves it blank. With no market rent at all, what it would let for is unknown, and Data completeness names it rather than counting it as zero. It needs its Suite SF, or it is skipped.

Deal page›Unit mix›Add unit type

Unit type

a floor plan, e.g. 2 Bed / 1 Bath

Units

how many of this type

Current avg rent

per unit, per month, not per SF

Occupancy %

how many are let; blank uses the deal's physical vacancy

Classification

optional; Renovated marks units already done, which the renovation programme leaves alone

Renovation cost / unit

optional, for a value-add programme

Units renovated / year

paces the programme

Rent premium ($/unit/mo)

what a renovated unit earns on top

Renovation downtime (months)

a unit earns nothing while it is being renovated

An apartment building is modelled by unit type, not by lease: each row is a floor plan, and its income is the units times the average rent times the share let, grown at the Rent growth (per year) set in Edit deal under Exit assumptions, less any economic vacancy, concessions and bad debt set there. There are no tenants, lease dates, lease types or rent steps on a unit mix. Where you set a renovation pace, units go off line at that pace, each costs the renovation cost as it starts, and each earns the rent premium on top once it is back. A rent roll that lists apartments one by one, uploaded under Documents, is counted into a unit mix in that document's review, for you to apply.

Deal page›Uses›Add use

Use

what it is called, such as Ground-floor retail

Underwritten as

Retail, Office, Industrial or Apartments: the model each use runs on

Rentable SF

the use's own area; its tenants pay their share of it, and a shared cost is split by it

Exit cap rate

the cap the use sells at; blank is the deal's

A mixed-use deal is underwritten use by use. Each use runs as a building of its own class: its own suites, or a unit mix for apartments, its own expense lines and a share of the lines the uses share, split by rentable area, and its own exit cap. The deal's income is the uses' added month by month, and its exit value is each use's year after the sale at its own cap, added together. Each use has its own rent roll section with its own add form. An expense or income line is one use's or shared: choose it on the line, under Cost of or Earned by. A rate a use leaves blank is the deal's. Switching a deal to Mixed use in Edit deal makes what it was its first use, holding its whole rent roll, so nothing it computed changes. A development values each use at its own market cap.

Deal page›Suites›open the suite›When this lease ends

Market rent ($/SF/yr)

what the next tenant pays; nothing after the expiration is modelled without it

Renewal probability %

how likely the tenant stays; renewing and re-leasing are blended by it

Downtime (months)

how long the space sits empty after the tenant leaves, before the next one pays. Also called down time

Free rent (months)

what the next tenant gets before rent starts

New term (months)

how long the next lease runs

Tenant improvements

the build-out for the next tenant

Leasing commission %

the fee on the new lease

When a lease ends inside the hold, these decide what the space earns after the tenant leaves: whether they renew, how many months it sits empty while it is releasing (the downtime), the free rent the next tenant gets, and what the build-out and commission cost. A dip in the cash flow just after an expiration is usually the downtime doing its job. The next lease reimburses expenses on its own lease type as they grow; a new Modified Gross lease's expense stop, like a gross lease's base year, is its own first year's expenses. Each suite sets its own under When this lease ends. Five of them can also be set for every suite at once, under Edit deal, then Building specifications, then Rollover assumptions for the whole building: Downtime (months), Free rent (months), Renewal probability, New lease term (months) and Leasing commission. A suite's own value always wins. Tenant improvements are set suite by suite, and so is market rent on a purchase; a listing can also give the whole building a Market rent ($/SF/yr) under The market, and a suite's own figure still wins.

Edit deal›Building specifications›Land

Exit priced

per acre, per SF, per entitled lot, or one total figure

Exit price

per unit above, or the whole figure if you chose one total

Lots

only for a per-lot exit; acres and SF come from Land area, under Site, and a number typed here is used in their place

Target return

what it must sell for to hit this is the number the page leads with

Land is the one asset class with no rent roll, so there is no NOI, no cap rate and nothing to capitalise. Every year of the hold is money going out and the whole return is in the sale. Everything else the land model reads is already on the deal: the price (the asking price on a listing), the closing costs on a purchase, the loan, the hold, the selling cost, the expense growth the carry grows at, and the acquisition date (the list date on a listing) that milestone dates count from. A per-acre or per-SF exit also needs the parcel's size: Land area, under Site in the same section. With no size and no lot count, the page says it has no exit quantity and the AI Land Analysis will not run.

Deal page›What holding it costs›Entitlement milestones

What it is

property taxes, insurance, mowing, security

Annual amount

year one; it grows at the deal's expense growth rate

Milestone

survey, engineering, rezoning, final plat

Cost

When

blank means paid at closing, NOT spread across the hold

Carry is what land costs to own while it earns nothing, and it compounds: a building raises rent against rising taxes and a parcel cannot. Entitlement milestones are dated costs. The date decides which year of the hold each cost is paid in, counted from the acquisition date (the list date on a listing); one dated within the first twelve months counts as paid at closing, and so does every milestone on a purchase with no acquisition date. Carry runs for the whole hold whatever the dates say, so if a late approval would push the sale back, lengthen the hold to see what that costs. Both are entered on the deal page rather than in Edit deal, in the two sections that display them.

Deal page›Lots and homes for sale›What you sell›Phases›The loan

Sold as

a finished lot sold to a builder, or a home built when it sells and closed when it is finished

Price $

today's price; it grows at the price growth you set

Sales a month

the pace that product sells at

Site work starts

the month a phase's site work begins; its lots can be sold once it is finished

Site work $

Loan-to-cost %

blank for no loan

Release price

what each closing repays the lender

The other way to sell land: develop it in phases and sell it as finished lots or homes over time, instead of in one sale. The land deal is the land, so its price, its closing costs, its carry and its dated milestones are read from it. The plan adds what you would build and sell on it: each product with its price, its cost to build and its sales pace; each phase's site work and its lots by product; the costs and growth rates; and a land-development loan that every closing repays at its release price. Once it computes, the plan's page shows the profit, the levered IRR beside selling the land in one sale, the peak equity, when it sells out, the money in each quarter, and what it can take: prices 10% lower, sales 25% slower, site work and building 10% over budget, site work starting 6 months late, and the loan's rate 100 bps higher.

Deal page›Ground-up development›The property

Gross SF

the contractor's denominator

Leasing

spec, leased up after completion, or build-to-suit, with a tenant signed before construction

The plan

build to sell once stabilized, or build to hold

Land closing date

month 0: when you buy the land, or start if you own it; every date counts from it

Construction months

Lease-up months

Space to lease (SF)

with nothing on the rent roll, the building goes on it as one vacant space; blank is the whole rentable area

Lease type

what the space to lease leases on; NNN passes the operating costs to the tenant

Construction LTC %

the construction loan, sized on cost

Construction LTV %

the lender's limit on the value once leased; the loan is the lower of the two, and a term sheet fills both

Market cap rate %

what a finished building like this sells at today

Target spread (bps)

yours; no default is shipped

The deal is the building: its asset class is what is built, and its rent roll or unit mix, its operating expenses and its other income come from the deal page, so nothing is entered twice. The development setup adds what an existing building does not have: the size, the schedule, the budget, the construction loan, the market the finished building sells into, and how the money is split between the investors and the sponsor. It is entered in five steps, in the order a developer works (the property, the budget, the schedule, leasing and exit, and capital), each saved on its own, in any order. A site plan filed under The documents is read off its sheets for the site's area, the building's area, the units and the parking, each beside the line it came from, and offered under From the site plan in the first step to use or leave. Once it computes, the deal page leads with the yield on cost (the finished building's NOI over everything it cost) against the market cap rate, the spread between them against your target, the profit and the return on the plan you chose, with the rest of the results and the cash flow under them. Build it, at the end of the steps, opens them.

Development setup›The budget

Category

land, hard or soft; the loan's interest and fees are worked out, never entered

Quoted as

a lump sum, per unit, per gross SF, per net rentable SF or per stall, as the quote is written

Amount

Backed by

the filed document the line comes from, or none

Owner contingency %

outside the GMP

Escalation %/yr

never folded into contingency

Developer fee %

of cost before the fee

Each line is priced the way it was quoted and placed in time, from the closing. The contingencies, the escalation, the developer fee and the construction loan's interest and fees are worked out from the lines rather than typed. A line backed by a document says so, and the page's What is actually documented section shows how much of the cost has a document behind it.

Development setup›The documents›The bids›Approvals›The loan, and what it puts at risk›Construction

Apply

in each document's review, which opens when it is read: a zoning letter's, site plan's or permit's approvals; a bid, filed and used for the budget; a term sheet, filed and used for the loan

Use this bid for the budget

again, for a bid already in the budget: the contractor's total becomes the budget's hard cost

Use this term sheet for the loan

again, for the sheet that is the loan: the lender's terms become the model's construction loan

Check this application

a G702/G703 pay application, checked against its own arithmetic

Upload each one under The documents at the top of the steps, or under Documents on the deal page. Left on "Let DealWise decide", each is filed as the kind it reads as (Zoning letter, Site plan, Permit, Contractor bid / GMP proposal, Loan, or Payment application (G702/G703)), and it is read in its step: the bids in the budget, the approvals in the schedule, the term sheets in capital, and the pay applications under Construction once the land closes. You can pick the kind yourself instead; if yours and the reading disagree, that is said beside it, with a button to change it. Each item it finds is proposed for you to check before it lands. An approval carries its dates and conditions, and one that construction waits on and is not yet in hand moves the start. A bid lists what it excludes in the contractor's own words, so two bids can be compared on what each leaves out. A term sheet's rate, fees, term and extensions become the loan, a floating rate included. A pay application's certified work becomes the cost to date: the lines the contract covers stop spending on their planned curve, and change orders draw on the contingency before they add to the cost.

Deal page›Due diligence

Read it

on each document filed as Survey, Environmental, Title or Appraisal; one filed as that kind when it is uploaded is read then

Apply

in the document's review: adds the rows you kept, as you left them, each backed by its document

Add a finding by hand

for something with no document behind it yet, such as a call with the title officer

File each document under Documents as Survey, Environmental, Title or Appraisal and it is read for what a buyer or a lender acts on. Nothing is added on its own: the reading is proposed, and you tick what to keep. A survey proposes its land area, its flood zone, and each easement and encroachment in its own words; a Phase I environmental report each recognized, controlled, historical and de minimis condition it concludes, and each recommendation; a title commitment each requirement and each exception; an appraisal each value it concludes, with its premise, its date and its cap rate. Each finding starts as needing action or not by what it usually means: an encroachment, a recognized environmental condition, a title requirement and a flood zone beginning with A or V need action; an easement, a title exception and a historical condition are usually accepted. Change either call on any row, before or after it is added, and mark a finding cleared once it is dealt with. A survey's land area can also set the deal's parcel size, only when you tick it.

Deal page

The banner shows the purchase price and its price per SF (or, on a listing, the asking price, under a line saying how far it sits from the range the rent roll supports), then four tiles: Going-in cap, Year-1 NOI, Levered IRR and Equity required. All four are computed on read from the rent roll, so every one of them moves the moment an input does. The DealWise AI Verdict under them, once an analysis has been run, is different: it is the stored result of that run, marked Out of date when the inputs move, and it changes only when you regenerate it.

Deal page›Returns›Deal performance

Returns gives Total equity required, Cash-on-cash (yr 1) when there is equity in, Levered IRR, Exit value and Net sale proceeds. Exit value is the NOI of the year after the sale divided by your exit cap rate; net proceeds take selling costs and the loan payoff out of that. Under it, Deal performance charts the monthly cash flow and marks three milestones: Peak NOI, Worst CF and CapEx. Below the chart every hold year opens into its own months and the arithmetic behind them.