A rent roll template, ready to fill.
A clean rent roll is one of the first documents a lender asks for. Download a template with the columns underwriting expects, fill it in, and it doubles as the rent roll in your data room.
A clean rent roll template with the columns lenders expect: unit, tenant, square footage, lease dates, base rent, escalations, and options. Fill it in and it doubles as your data room's rent roll.
Downloads a CSV you can open in Excel or Google Sheets. Built in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
What a lender wants to see
A rent roll is the one-page picture of a property's income. Lenders want unit or suite, tenant, square footage, lease start and end, base rent, rent per square foot, escalations, and options, at minimum.
The escalations and options columns matter more than they look: they drive the future income the loan is really underwritten against.
Keep it current
A rent roll is a snapshot, and a stale one is worse than none, because it looks authoritative while being wrong. Underwriting on last quarter's roll is underwriting on the wrong number.
Pairing the rent roll with lease abstracts, the why behind each line, gives underwriting the full picture.
The columns, explained
A rent roll template is only as useful as the columns it forces you to fill. Here is what each one captures and why an underwriter reads it.
| Column | What it captures | Why underwriting cares |
|---|---|---|
| Unit / Suite | The physical space | Ties income to a specific, verifiable unit |
| Tenant | Who occupies it | Credit and concentration of the rent |
| Sq Ft | Leased area | Drives rent per square foot and occupancy |
| Lease Start / End | The lease term | Shows rollover inside the loan term |
| Base Rent (Monthly) | Contractual rent today | The income the loan is sized on |
| Rent PSF | Rent per square foot | Benchmarks the rent against the market |
| Escalations | Scheduled rent increases | The future income the loan underwrites to |
| Options | Renewal or purchase rights | Who controls the space at term |
Common rent roll mistakes
The errors that slow a closing are rarely exotic. They are the same few every time.
- A stale dateA roll pulled last quarter describes a different building if leases have turned over. Date every version.
- Contractual rent confused with collected rentThe rent roll shows what tenants owe; the operating statement shows what came in. Keep them distinct.
- Missing escalations and optionsThese drive the future income the loan is underwritten against, so a blank here understates the deal.
- No reconciliation to estoppelsNumbers on the roll are only proven once tenants confirm them on their estoppel certificates.
What a rent roll is
A rent roll is a list of every unit or space in a property with the tenant, the lease dates, the rent and the status, as of a stated date. It is the property's income in its rawest form, before it is summarized into an operating statement.
Multifamily and commercial rent rolls look different because the leases do. A multifamily rent roll is long and simple: hundreds of units, short leases, market rent beside actual rent. A commercial rent roll is short and dense: fewer tenants, each with escalations, expense recoveries, options and termination rights that change what the income is worth.
How a lender reads it
The lender reads the rent roll for durability rather than totals. How much of the income expires in the next two years, and whether it is concentrated in one tenant. How far in-place rents sit below or above market. Which units are vacant, delinquent, or occupied by employees or models paying nothing.
Then it reconciles. The rent roll should agree with the leases, with the tenant estoppels for the larger tenants, and with the collections in the trailing twelve month operating statement. Rent on the roll that never shows up as cash is the most common discrepancy, and it is a credit question rather than a formatting one.
Questions lenders ask
- What columns should a rent roll have?
- At minimum: unit or suite, tenant, square footage, lease start and end, base monthly rent, rent per square foot, escalations, and options. The template above includes all of these.
- What format is the rent roll template?
- A CSV you can open in Excel or Google Sheets. It is generated in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
- What is a rent roll template?
- A rent roll template is a standardized layout with the columns a lender expects: unit, tenant, square footage, lease dates, base rent, rent per square foot, escalations, and options. The one above downloads as a CSV you fill in, and it doubles as the rent roll in your data room.
- Who prepares the rent roll?
- The owner or property manager prepares it, because they hold the lease data. A buyer or lender then treats the date it was pulled as part of the data, since a rent roll is only current as of the day it was run.
- Is a rent roll the same as an operating statement?
- No. A rent roll shows contractual rent, what tenants are obligated to pay. An operating statement shows what the property actually collected and spent. Lenders read both and reconcile the two.
- What is a rent roll?
- A list of every unit or space in a property with its tenant, lease dates, rent and status as of a date. Lenders use it to underwrite income and reconcile it with the leases, estoppels and operating statements.
- What is a certified rent roll?
- A rent roll the borrower signs as true and correct as of a date, usually required at closing. The certification makes the borrower responsible for its accuracy.
- How is a rent roll different from a lease abstract?
- A rent roll lists every tenant's core economics in one table. A lease abstract summarizes one lease in depth, including options, termination rights and restrictions the rent roll does not capture.
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