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5SECONDMODEL COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE UNDERWRITING

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Back-of-the-napkin commercial real estate underwriting, in seconds.

5 Second Model · back-of-the-napkin underwriting

 

 

 

NNN Acquisition

Single tenant, net lease. Buy the income, ride the bumps, sell it to the next guy.

A triple net deal is a bond with a roof, and the two things that decide the outcome are the rent escalations and where the cap rate sits when you sell. This model prices the property off a going-in cap, applies bumps on whatever schedule the lease actually uses, sizes debt with an optional interest-only period, and exits at a cap rate you choose. It tracks lease term remaining at sale, because a buyer prices the years left on the lease rather than your going-in cap.

Statement of assumptions & returnsAll figures USD · annual unless noted · click any number to type it exactly

Levered IRR / Equity multiple

--

Equity out at close, then rent, then the sale

What you are buying

Purchase price at the going-in cap--
Buy-side broker fee--
Closing costs and diligence--
All-in basis--
Loan proceeds--
Loan fee--
Equity required--
Effective going-in yield on basis--

Sources and uses

Deal metrics

Yield by year

Return on total cost as the deal stabilizes, against the cap rate you exit at

The income

Year-one rent--
Rent in the final year--
Year-one debt service--
Year-one DSCR--
Year-one cash-on-cash--
Average cash-on-cash over the hold--

The exit

Forward NOI at sale--
Lease term remaining at sale--
Going-in cap vs exit cap--
Gross sale price--
Sell-side broker fee and closing--
Loan payoff--
Net proceeds to you--
Total profit over the hold--
Net present value--

Debt service coverage by year

Amortization schedule

Read the two together. Coverage tells you whether each year clears the lender’s floor; the schedule tells you what you still owe on the day you sell. An interest-only period flatters the first and does nothing for the second — the balance sits exactly where it started.

Return sensitivity

Levered IRR across going-in and exit cap rates. Your case is outlined.

Scenario analysis

Each column is the whole model re-run, not an adjustment to the base case.

What moves the return most

Points of IRR between the low and high case for each driver, ranked

Where this deal breaks

Solved against your own discount rate. Everything else held at your assumptions.

Cap rate drift is the whole game. Buy at a 6.5 and sell at a 7.5 and you hand back years of rent bumps. The spread line above tells you which way the deal is leaning before you look at anything else. On a flat-rent lease with no bumps, every basis point of exit cap expansion comes straight out of your equity.
Term remaining is what a net lease buyer actually prices. A 15-year lease with 12 years left trades at one cap rate; the same building with three years left trades far wider, because the buyer is underwriting a re-tenanting, not an income stream. If your hold takes the lease under about five years remaining, the exit cap in this model is optimistic no matter what the market is doing.
What is not modeled: tenant credit, landlord obligations that survive a "true" NNN (roof and structure are often carved out), percentage rent, and the reassessment that usually follows a sale. If the lease has under five years left, this is not the right tool — you are buying a re-tenanting problem, not an income stream.

Common questions

What happens if the exit cap is higher than the going-in cap?
You give back years of rent bumps. On a flat-rent lease with no escalations, every basis point of cap expansion comes straight out of your equity.
How much lease term should be left when I sell?
Under about five years and a buyer is underwriting a re-tenanting rather than an income stream, which prices materially wider. Model your hold against the lease, not just the market.
Are triple net leases really zero landlord cost?
Rarely entirely. Roof and structure are often carved out, and reassessment on sale can hit the tenant hard enough to matter at renewal. The leakage input exists for this.
Cap Rate Loan Sizing Vacant Retail Box Value-Add Strip Plaza contact@5secondmodel.com New York, NY

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These are screening tools. They round, they assume, and they leave out capital expenditure, income tax, reserves and everything else that matters at the diligence stage. Directionally right is the goal — verify before you sign. Nothing here is investment, tax or legal advice. Every calculation runs in your browser; no data is sent anywhere. © 2026 5 Second Model · New York, NY.