Rent roll analysis turns a point-in-time lease schedule into a checked set of unit, occupancy, rent, and rollover facts. Whether the work is performed by an analyst or a rent roll analyzer, it should make unit-level exceptions visible before they disappear into averages. Use the checklist below before underwriting occupancy, loss-to-lease, lease rollover, or revenue growth. The most important questions are often in a duplicate unit, an ambiguous status, a concession, a stale market rent, or a cluster of leases expiring at the same time.
Prove the schedule is complete
Confirm the effective date and reconcile distinct units to the OM and unit mix. Separate rentable units from models, employee units, commercial spaces, down units, and duplicates. A unit-count mismatch changes occupancy and every per-unit metric that follows.
Keep missing values distinct from zero. A blank rent, lease date, or status is an exception to investigate, not a value to coerce for the convenience of aggregation.
Normalize lease and unit fields
Standardize unit type, beds, baths, square feet, occupancy status, lease start, lease end, contract rent, market rent, concessions, balances, and recurring charges. Preserve the source row so a reviewer can return to the original record.
- Duplicate or missing unit identifiers
- Invalid or overlapping lease dates
- Inconsistent monthly and weekly rent periods
- Ambiguous occupied, notice, preleased, and vacant statuses
Calculate metrics under named definitions
Physical occupancy and economic occupancy answer different questions. Loss-to-lease also depends on the selected market-rent benchmark. State the formula, denominator, date, and status logic behind each summary instead of relying on a label alone.
Segment by unit type and lease cohort. Portfolio-wide averages can hide whether upside is concentrated in a handful of units or whether exposure arrives in a single leasing season.
Translate the schedule into a revenue forecast
Build an explicit bridge from in-place contractual rent through expirations, renewal assumptions, vacancy, concessions, bad debt, and ancillary charges. Near-term lease timing deserves unit-level treatment before broader annual assumptions take over.
Facts and assumptions should remain separate. The rent roll can support current lease terms; it cannot independently prove future market rent, renewal probability, downtime, renovation cost, or collection improvement.
A completed analysis should be usable by the next person without reopening every source row. Keep the normalized schedule beside the original file, and state the date, denominator, and status rules behind each summary. Any exception that could change occupancy, revenue, or the business plan should remain visible until it is resolved.
- A unit-count reconciliation that explains duplicates, models, employee units, commercial space, and down units
- Physical and economic occupancy under named definitions
- In-place rent, market benchmark, and loss-to-lease by unit type and lease cohort
- A monthly lease-expiration schedule with near-term concentration clearly marked
- An exception list covering missing dates, balances, concessions, delinquency, and conflicting statuses
These outputs can then be reconciled with the T12 and mapped into the firm’s model. If the rent roll and operating statement disagree, preserve both facts and explain the bridge rather than forcing the schedules to match.
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Bring one OM and your own model. We run it on the call, and you judge the output against your numbers.