Real Estate Thinking

Rent Rolls

A total revenue number conceals. A rent roll reveals: tenant by tenant, term by term, who actually pays, until when, and how reliably. It's how professionals read income quality, in buildings and in businesses.

  • Intermediate
  • 7 min total
  • 11 chapters

What decision this helps you make: How to read a rent roll (or any customer ledger) to judge income quality, and what red flags reprice or kill a deal.

What this topic is

The tenant-by-tenant ledger of a property's income: units, occupants, rents, lease dates, deposits, and payment status. It is the document buyers and lenders actually underwrite from.

Why it matters

Identical revenue totals can hide opposite realities. The roll exposes below/above-market rents, expiration cliffs, concentration, and non-payment: the quality of the income.

Who should learn it

Buyers, lenders, and owners of income property, and anyone evaluating a business's revenue one customer at a time.

What you will understand

  • Revenue quality lives line by line, not in the total
  • Check every rent against market, since both directions matter
  • Map expirations: staggered is stable, clustered is a cliff
  • A rent roll is a claim until bank deposits verify it

Prerequisites

Common misconception

"The gross rent tells you what the property earns." It tells you what the leases say at this moment. What the property earns depends on who's actually paying, how long each lease lasts, what happens at each expiration, and whether the rents are sustainable against market, all of which live in the lines, not the total.