A Practitioner’s Guide to Strategy, Track Record, Terms and Getting to First Close
Julian R. Sterling
These are the companion files of Raising a Real Estate Fund by Julian R. Sterling.The book on Amazon →
One Excel workbook that runs Chapter 17’s funnel on a calendar, now corrected. Around it, a blank version for your own raise, thirteen working documents to print, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases the book does not work. All free. Nothing is gated behind a sign-up, and no email address is asked for.
Six workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 24 September 2026.
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The printed funnel does not obey the rule printed beside it. Half grant a
first meeting, half produce a second, half enter diligence, half reach a soft circle,
two-thirds convert. Applied to 180 names those five rules give 90, 45, 22.5, 11.25 and
7.5 — not 90, 40, 22, 12 and 8. Three of the five stages depart from
the rule (90 to 40, 40 to 22, 22 to 12) and the errors very nearly cancel, which is why nobody notices. But 7.5 commitments is
93,750,000 against a stated first close of 100,000,000. To close eight on the rules as worded,
the screened list has to be 192 names, not 180.
The eight investors do not arrive as eight investors. Run the same funnel on
a calendar and they arrive as two lumps, because soft circles wait for quarterly committees:
37,500,000 closing in month 7.6 and 56,250,000 in month 11.3.
The hundred million is never reached at all. Chapter 17 computes, to the unit, that a slip
from month nine to month fifteen costs 1,950,000 — and the workbook reproduces that
figure exactly. It is not the cost of a delay. It is the cost of the plan.
The response to the start date is a cliff, not a slope. Beginning in week 19
through week 25 all close the same 93,750,000 by month twelve. Week 27 closes 81,250,000.
Week 28 closes 75,000,000, and the first close jumps from month 6.5 to
month 9.9, because the leading cohort misses a papers deadline by days and takes everything
behind it along. Starting three weeks after the book’s week 22 costs nothing; six weeks costs 20 per cent.
Between early May and late July, a third of the money moves on the choice of start week.
The house does not survive its own first close. The chapter’s management
company costs 200,000 a month; its 100,000,000 first close at 1.5 per cent pays 125,000 —
62.5 per cent of the burn. The capital that has to close before the fee covers the cost is
160,000,000. The partners fund 2,095,312 by month twelve and 4,082,812 by
month thirty-six, and the house never turns cash-positive on the first close alone.
Two rules the book never puts in the same sentence. Chapter 20 sets the
first close at a quarter to a third of target; Appendix C computes break-even at full fund
size. The fee at first close is charged on what has closed. A quarter-close covers the
Appendix C budget only from a target of 485,714,286; a third-close only
from 364,285,714. The book’s own 300,000,000 fund runs a 375,000 annual deficit, and that
deficit is the committed partner capital chapter 20’s third test asks for
— the number chapter 18 says a reviewer will call a thin runway.
And the fix is not the one a founder reaches for. Two constraints bind: the
list and the diary. Going from six sessions a week to twelve at 180 names changes nothing.
Going from 180 names to 240 at the same six a week closes 112,500,000. Sixty
more names is worth more than doubling the travel. Forty checks.
Go to sheet 8 and read the second column downwards. Then change the start week on sheet 1
to 28 and watch sheet 4 rebuild: the leading cohort misses a papers deadline by days, waits a
full quarter, and takes the whole raise with it. That single step is the chapter’s own
sentence about the first of March, applied to the chapter’s own funnel. Then find the
book’s cell on sheet 9 — 180 names, six a week. Move right along the row and
nothing happens. Move down the column and the target is cleared.
What the arithmetic does not settle
It cannot tell you your own conversion rates, and those are the first inputs to replace. It cannot
tell you whether a particular investor’s committee is monthly or quarterly — which is
exactly why chapter 17 tells you to ask, in those words, when it sits and who writes the
paper. And it cannot judge a strategy: a funnel that converts badly because the fund is wrong for
the market looks identical, in this workbook, to one that converts badly because the list is too
short. The chapter’s own test settles that one, and it is not arithmetic — if eleven
investors decline for the same reason, that reason is the product.
The same queue, for your own raise
The workbook with every input emptied. Enter your own list, conversion rates, meeting rate, stage durations, committee calendar and management company; the checks sheet counts what is still missing and tests what holds for any inputs.
Chapters 15, 17, 18 and 20 · Appendices C and F
A blank raise, run on a calendar
Your screened list and five conversion rates, your ticket and first-close target, your meeting rate and the sessions each stage takes, your start week, the weeks between stages, the committee weeks of your investors and the weeks your market goes quiet, and your management company’s cost and fee. The file gives the funnel, the diary it implies, the queue week by week, the burn against the fee, the first-close rule against break-even, the cliff across thirteen start weeks and the grid of list against diary.
The book’s inputs are listed in a text file inside the archive. Type them back in and the file returns 93,750,000 closed by month twelve in two lumps, in months 7.6 and 11.3, and partners funding 2,095,312 by month twelve.
Thirteen pages to print and use. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Chapters 2 to 20 · Appendices A and D
Thirteen working documents
The strategy at three lengths with its seven elements and the capability test. The deal-by-deal track record schedule with the gross-to-net bridge and its seven presentation checks. The attribution schedule in four claims, with the reference call question by question. Bottom-up sizing, the deployment model and pipeline coverage. The house: four functions, hires on triggers, the cap table and the key person draft. The management company budget, break-even and the fee across the fund’s life.
The term sheet, term by term. The consent matrix, the allocation log, the GP commitment by source and the side letter schedule. The investor map filtered by permission, the anchor asks priced, the agent mandate. The weekly pipeline with its unflattering column and the committee calendar. The operational due diligence policy set, evidence file and runway test. The data room index, the figures file, the question log and the hard answers. The first-close tests, the equalisation lines and the Appendix A deadlines.
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
Eight on what is sold and the record, six on the house and the vehicle, eight on the economics with Appendix C, six on terms, governance and alignment, eight on investors, the process and the close with Appendix F, and four 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. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Chapter 10 · Case one
Two years late
Chapter 10 tells the manager to model “the case in which everything is realised two years later than planned” and never runs it. On its own four-asset fund, with nothing added: one year late the whole-fund carry is still 10.0; two years late it is 0.09, because the fund’s return slides to 8.01 per cent, a whisker above the hurdle. Deal by deal the manager still takes 13.0 in years 4 and 5, so the clawback is 12.9, not 3. Capped after tax, the investors are 3.87 short for good, and escrow at a quarter holds 3.25.
Chapter 6 · Case two
Two of the six
Chapter 6 prices two drafts of the key person clause and gives the remedy only in words: “two of the six, or one of the two founders plus one other”. At the chapter’s 5 per cent a year over five years, any one of six fires with probability 78.5 per cent; two of six, 40.9 per cent, about the risk of naming only two (40.1 per cent) while covering six people; a founder and one other, 25.7 per cent; both founders, 5.1 per cent. The threshold, not the list, sets the risk. Even at 2.3 per cent departures a year, any one of six is a coin flip.
Chapter 20 · Appendix C · Case three
The four months A carried alone
Chapter 20 says the equalisation rate is “a proxy for what A gave up” and never says by how much. At cost, B takes half of any gain A carried alone: on an asset worth an ADDED 10.5 million at the second close, 150,000 moves from A to B. The 6 per cent rate is fair only if the asset rose 2 per cent in those four months. And the book pays the interest on the fee catch-up to the manager in Chapter 20 and to the early investors in Appendix C, Case 4: 7,875 that the model puts on both conventions.
an input the book does not state, each labelled with the reason
Checks sheet
forty controls — five exist only to reproduce the book before disagreeing with it
Every figure is illustrative. The fund, the house and the investors are invented, as they are in
the book. Every input is one the book states, except two session counts and three stage durations,
which are labelled as deductions beside the sentence in the book they are deduced from.
Opening the file
The workbook opens in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. It uses no
macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet asks to
update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
24 Sep 2026
The book’s workbook corrected: the committee weeks and the August and December dead weeks were text that no formula read, and are now inputs every sheet uses; three of the five printed funnel steps depart from the rule, not two; the cliff needs a six-week late start, not three, to lose 20 per cent. Forty checks. Added: a blank version, thirteen working documents, forty questions that mark themselves and three new cases. The workbook can now also be downloaded on its own.
Is a 2 per cent placement agent fee worth paying?A 2 per cent fee on $120M of introduced capital is $2.40M. At 25 per cent overlap it pays back in 21 months, and it loses money only above 80 per cent.
How much does it cost to set up a real estate fund?About 1,350,000 for an illustrative 300,000,000 fund, 2,950,000 with a placement agent. Below 271,250,000 the expense cap leaves part of it to the manager.
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.
CMBS and CRE CLOsWhere the loss actually lands, from appraisal reduction to realised severity, and what the B-piece is really being paid for.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Go beyond the companion files
Raising a Real Estate Fund develops the complete framework behind these models, with the assumptions, trade-offs and worked examples tied together.
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