How to Read a Rent Roll

Do you know all the elements of a rent roll? This book is intended for those who are on the verge or in the throes of buying income-producing property. One of your foremost tasks in the acquisitions process is to validate contractual rental revenue. Rental revenue is provided to prospective investors under the terms of a confidentiality agreement. The seller will provide you with certain financial data, including the rent roll, for your inspection during the due diligence period. It is up to you to validate this information. Buying rental property is not an impulse purchase. The acquisition process is a significant time commitment and one that can be very rewarding. As a prospective buyer, you need to know how to build, understand and use the rent roll to your advantage. This book is a technical guide to rent roll analysis. The objective here is to narrow your attention to one thing and one thing only: estimating the validity, or reliability, of contractual rental revenue collected from income property. Why is this important? Because getting it wrong undermines any and all further work performed towards the goal of estimating Net Operating Income (NOI). If the revenue number is suspect, over-reported, under-reported or credit quality is without support, then what’s the point of devoting energy, resources or dollars to completing the rest of the equation towards NOI? Without a solid foundation based on valid rental income the balance of your due diligence is an exercise in futility.