Every figure printed in the book comes out of these six files, and they come
with the book: now completed, so that the liquidations, the cash reconciliation, the stress
scenarios and the surveillance pass are formulas too, and checked by 254 controls. Around them:
the same six with the inputs emptied, thirteen working documents to print, forty questions that
mark themselves, and three cases the book names and never takes to a number. Nothing is locked,
protected or watermarked. Open the cells, change the assumptions, and watch the conclusions move.
No sign-up, no email address, nothing to agree to.
The six workbooks, the blank set, the working documents, the questions, the three cases and
the read-me. Each group below can also be downloaded on its own. Last revised 24 September 2026.
Get an email if these files are corrected
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They carry the book’s own figures, so that every number it prints can be traced
to a live formula. Each closes on a Controls sheet.
Deal_Model.xlsx
The whole transaction: the twenty-loan tape, the fourteen-class capital structure, credit
support computed from the stack rather than typed in, and the reverse-sequential loss
allocation. Now also the three liquidations the loss comes from, the ten-year cash reconciliation
that closes to the cent, the five stress scenarios and the surveillance pass of Chapter 25.
The walk from an appraisal-based severity of 25.90 percent to a realized severity of 37.24 percent, line by
line — and the break-even appreciation rate that decides whether waiting is worth
anything. Now with the same loan without an appraisal reduction, and at other appraisals: with a
reduction in place the break-even stays between 5.8 and 6.0 per cent for appraisals anywhere
from 60 million down to 25 million.
The appraisal reductions, the monthly interest shortfall they create, the spill from the
first-loss class into the class above it, the exact cumulative reduction at which control
of the deal changes hands, and the shortfall month by month to the last liquidation.
The bid. Enter a target yield and a loss scenario; the price falls out. The timing grid is
live, so you can find your own indifference points. Beside it, the deal as it happened: losses
written in year 5 return 8.02 per cent on 1.70x, not the 9.06 per cent the book prints.
Retained-equity return by advance rate, the break-even annual loss rate, and the
overcollateralization test with the haircut as an input rather than a footnote.
A skeleton for a loan of your own, arriving with the book’s Fenwick Business Park in it: debt
yield, loan-to-value and coverage tested together, with the binding constraint named. The blank
set has it empty.
Blue cells are inputs, black cells are formulas, a yellow fill marks an
assumption that carries the answer. Each file has a Controls sheet that
recomputes the book's figures from the live formulas and counts the failures. There are
254 controls in all; the failure count should read zero and the last line ALL OK.
The same models, for your own deal
Six workbooks with every input emptied. Their Checks sheets count what is still missing and test what holds for any inputs.
All six workbooks
Your tape, your stack, your workout
The deal model, the loss bridge, the appraisal reductions, the bid, the CRE CLO and the refinancing gap, with the same formulas and every blue cell emptied. The severities, years, advance rates and carrying values of the tables stay.
The book’s inputs are listed in a text file inside the archive. Type them back in and the book’s figures come back with them: 37.24 per cent on Marlowe Tower, 45.37 cents for the first-loss block, a refinancing gap of 1.15 million.
Thirteen pages to print and use. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Chapters 3 to 29 · Appendices B and C
Thirteen working documents
Reading a loan tape, with the cross-check nobody runs. Underwritten cash flow rebuilt from the outside. The stack, the iso-loss curve and the presale report. The waterfall and the cash reconciliation. The borrower’s side. The first ninety days of special servicing and the fee stack. Appraisal reduction, shortfall and control. Wait or sell, and the liquidation bridge. The first-loss bid and risk retention at fair value. Maturity default or term default. The CRE CLO. The monthly surveillance pass. And the fifty questions before you buy, with room for the answers.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All parts of the book
Forty questions on the book
Seven on the tape and the cash flow, seven on the stack, the rating and the waterfall, eight on the failure case, six on the first loss and its variants, six from the maturity wall to the stress tests, and six on the three cases below. Numbers are marked to a tolerance, multiple choice to the letter, and the score sheet counts your errors part by part: that is your revision list.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapters name and never take to a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a checks sheet closes it.
Chapter 19 · Case one
Closing the retention gap
The first-loss block covers 3.36 per cent of the structure’s fair value, not five, and the chapter names three ways to find the missing 16.64 million. Priced: adding class E at par costs 20.0 million and overshoots to 5.33 per cent; an L-shape needs a slice of 1.70 per cent of every class above the block; a sponsor’s five per cent of everything needs 50.67 million and is the only route that loses in every state. For the block alone to comply it would have to fetch 68.72 cents, a 5.85 per cent return on the base case: below its own coupon.
Chapter 22 · Case two
Marlowe Tower without an advance
The same loan with no advancing obligation (ADDED), as the chapter describes Europe. Severity falls from 37.24 to 28.65 per cent, closer to the appraisal number, but the cost does not: 24.57 million with the advance, 24.53 million without, the difference being exactly the fee share of the advances. What moves is the timing and the payer: 320,504 a month missed from the first month, class F, rated BB, short 45,248 a month, and 0.47 million more in present value at 12.5 per cent.
Chapter 20 · Case three
One building falls
The chapter’s 340 million single-asset loan, defaulted and sold for 290 million after 24 months (coupon, appraisal, price and months ADDED). Severity 27.35 per cent against 14.71 on the appraisal: E and D written off, and C loses 32.5 per cent after a 46.8 per cent fall that the book’s table says it survives. Once fees and advances are counted, the BB- class breaks at a 28.13 per cent fall, not 37.61, and its 332 basis points of capitalization-rate cushion become 215.
the last sheet of every workbook: each row recomputes a printed figure, and the file ends ALL OK
ADDED
a figure the book does not give, used in the cases and marked wherever it appears
What changed, and when
24 Sep 2026
The six workbooks completed and checked: 254 controls, against 47. The deal model now carries the three liquidations, the cash reconciliation, the stress scenarios and the surveillance pass. The three loans are written down in year 5, not year 6: the first-loss block returns 8.02 per cent on 1.70x, not 9.06 on 1.78x. Chapter 15’s rule that waiting gets dearer the deeper the loan is under water holds only before an appraisal reduction. Added: a blank set, thirteen working documents, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases.
How is credit enhancement calculated in CMBS?Sum the classes junior to a bond and divide by the pool: Class D with $75.0M beneath it in a $1,000M deal has 7.50 per cent credit enhancement, not 12.75.
How does a CMBS waterfall work?Interest goes down the stack, principal goes to the top class, losses come off the bottom: in one month $39.5M retires Class A and a $12.0M loss hits Class G.
How is CMBS risk retention calculated?Horizontal retention is 5 per cent of fair value, not face: on a $1,000M conduit that is $50.16M of value, which takes $77.96M of discounted junior bonds.
How are SASB CMBS tranches sized with debt yield?Agency NCF over each rating's debt yield gives the cumulative balance: 42.0M at 13.00% is a 323.08M AAA class on a 600.0M SASB loan, 53.8 per cent.
How does a net WAC cap cut a CMBS bond's coupon?A WAC-capped CMBS class pays the lesser of its coupon and the net WAC. When high-rate loans repay, 5.11% can drop to 4.85% and cut a 5.00% bond.
How is a pari passu loan split across CMBS trusts?Pro rata by note balance. A $180.0m loan split 70/60/50 across three trusts turns a $52.2m liquidation loss into $20.3m, $17.4m and $14.5m in three deals.
Also by Julian R. Sterling
The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the author page.
Closing the DealTwo defensible bridges 20.70 million apart, a peg worth 7.00 million, and the six choices that remove 6.60 of a 12.00 earn-out.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Credit AgreementWhere the default actually comes from, the cure that costs 5.5 times the other, and the capacity nobody adds up.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Private Equity Real EstateBoth worked waterfalls to the dollar, the two capital stacks, and the arithmetic of the promote made changeable.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
Raising a Real Estate FundThe chapter 17 funnel run on a calendar — when the first close actually lands, and why more travel does not help.
Real Estate Financial ModelingProperty, development and fund models built line by line, and the modelling test worked end to end.
Real Estate Fund ManagementThe waterfall of 6.11, the build-to-core of 8.7 and the proceeds gap, reproduced as live formulas rather than asserted.
REIT Analysis and ValuationFFO of 532.0, AFFO of 381.0, net asset value and dividend safety — every figure a formula you can change.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
The Growth Equity InvestorWhat a pro rata cheque really costs, and the band where defending your ownership loses money.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Venture Capital AssociateWhat defending a position costs, and how many companies a reserve pool actually defends.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 - the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost. The number that mattered appears in no report at all.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
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