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5SECONDMODEL COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE UNDERWRITING

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

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Strip Plaza Quick Underwrite

Twenty tenants, staggered rollover, and what it costs you every time one leaves.

Rollover is the whole risk in a strip centre. Every lease expiry is a coin flip on downtime, a fresh allowance and another commission, and the stagger matters more than the headline rent. This model takes a rent roll of up to twenty tenants, each with its own size, rent, escalation, remaining term and cap rate, then runs the rollover schedule across your hold. It reports weighted average lease term, tenant concentration, square feet expiring each year, the blended cap, and what the TI and commissions actually cost you.

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

Rent roll

Set rent to zero for vacant space. Up to 20 tenants.

Levered IRR / Equity multiple

--

The centre today

Total gross leasable area--
Occupied square feet--
In-place base rent--
Average in-place rent--
Weighted average lease term--
Recoveries, net of non-recoverables--
In-place net operating income--
Largest tenant, share of income--
Expiring within the hold--
Vacant space to lease--
Concentration is the number a lender asks about first. A plaza where one tenant carries half the income is a single-tenant deal wearing a strip centre's clothes — if that lease rolls badly, the whole property reprices. Under about 30% from any one tenant is comfortable.

Sources and uses

Hold period comparison

The same deal underwritten to three exits. Every column is a full re-run.

Deal metrics

Yield by year

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

Rent roll detail

Priced tenant by tenant

Value contributed by each tenant at its own cap rate

Operating expenses

Recovered from tenants at your recovery rate; the balance is yours

Rollover schedule

Square feet expiring each year of the hold

Vacant space is valued at zero here, not at a negative. A buyer will not pay you for empty suites, but they will not usually charge you for them either — they price the income and treat the vacancy as upside. The carrying cost still shows up in your cash flow, and the lease-up cost still hits the year it happens.
Rollover is the whole risk in a strip centre. Every expiry is a coin flip on downtime, a fresh allowance, and another commission. Stagger matters more than headline rent: five leases expiring in the same year is a capital event you have to fund from somewhere, and a lender will size the loan against it.

What it costs to hold

Purchase price at the blended cap--
Price per square foot--
Landlord work letter--
Roof replacement--
Closing costs--
All-in basis--
Loan proceeds and fee--
Equity required--
Year-one DSCR--
TI and commissions over the hold--

Cash flow by year, after rollover costs and debt

The exit

Forward NOI at sale--
Sale price at the exit cap--
Sale broker fee and closing--
Loan payoff--
Net proceeds--
Unlevered IRR--
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 market rent on rollover and exit cap. 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.

Renewal probability is doing quiet work. At 70% renewal you pay a renewal allowance and a small commission most of the time; at 30% you are paying full new-deal TI, a full commission and months of downtime on nearly every expiry. It is the single input most worth getting right, and the one nobody can tell you for certain.

Common questions

What is WALT and why does it matter?
Weighted average lease term is the rent-weighted average of the years remaining across the rent roll. It is the single best shorthand for how much rollover risk you are buying, and lenders size against it.
How much tenant concentration is too much?
Under about 30% of income from any one tenant is comfortable. Above 40% you effectively own a single-tenant deal wearing a strip centre’s clothes, and it reprices if that lease rolls badly.
What renewal probability should I assume?
It is the input most worth getting right and the one nobody can tell you for certain. At 70% you pay a renewal allowance and a small commission most of the time; at 30% you pay full new-deal TI, a full commission and months of downtime on nearly every expiry.
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.