A Practitioner's Guide to Building Property, Development and Fund Models — and Passing the Modeling Test
Julian R. Sterling
These are the companion files of Real Estate Financial Modeling by Julian R. Sterling.The book on Amazon →
The five Excel workbooks that go with the book, every number a live formula and every figure
the book publishes reproduced exactly. Around them, eight working documents to print, forty
questions that mark themselves, and three cases the book does not work. Nothing is locked,
protected or watermarked.
Free to download. No sign-up, no email address, nothing to fill in.
Eight workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each file below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 22 September 2026.
Get an email if these files are corrected
Optional. When a workbook on this page is corrected or a new worked case goes up, readers on the list get one email, plus a short note when a new book comes out. The downloads do not need it.
The full worked model, built to the seven-sheet architecture of Chapter 2: Read Me,
Summary, Assumptions, Rent Roll, Cash Flow, Debt, Returns, Sensitivity. It reproduces the
chapter exactly — net initial yield 5.22%, loan sized at 12,925,000 on the binding
loan-to-value test, unlevered IRR 8.21% at a 1.44× multiple, levered 11.07% at 1.64×,
exit at 30,287,357 gross. Six checks sit at the top of the Summary sheet and all six pass.
Change the exit yield on the Assumptions sheet and watch what moves — the fastest way to
understand why Chapter 15 says the exit yield is the assumption that carries the answer.
The same architecture, empty, for your own deal. The header block, the flag rows, the
three debt tests, the covenant grid and the check block are already built. Fill in the
Assumptions and the Rent Roll; the rest calculates. One example row shows the expected
format — overwrite it.
The three timed cases, each with the brief, a blank working area and a live solution:
single-let logistics in 45 minutes; a development residual in 60 minutes, where the land
cell is the one you iterate; an equity waterfall in 30 minutes. Work them against a clock
before you look at the solution block.
All 53 items of Appendix B with a status dropdown, a notes column and a counter at the
top; the Chapter 16 two-hour protocol for auditing a model you did not build, with the
twelve things that are usually wrong ranked by frequency; and the Chapter 18 allocation
for a modeling test under time pressure.
Chapter 15 specifies exactly what a sensitivity section owes a committee: a tornado
chart, a two-way table on the top two drivers, a scenario table of four columns and six
rows, and four break-even numbers. Chapter 19 builds Meridian House, calls it a
finished model, and delivers a one-way table, three scenarios in prose and one break-even
of the four. This workbook rebuilds Chapter 19 from its published inputs —
twelve controls check the rebuild against the chapter, including all ten cells of its own
sensitivity table — and then produces the page. It finds that the covenant that
binds is the debt yield at a 7.9 percent fall in income, not the coverage ratio at 35.5;
that the real risk threshold is three and a third times nearer than the exit-yield
headroom suggests; and that “the combination is worse than the sum” is a fact
about leverage rather than correlation, true above about 19.6 percent loan-to-value and
false below it. Eighty-three controls, all live.
Eight pages to print and use. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Appendix B · Chapters 10, 12, 13, 15 to 18
Eight working documents
The Appendix B review checklist on two pages. The two-hour audit of Chapter 16 with the twelve things usually wrong. Debt sizing on three tests, with the distance to every covenant. The page that gets read: tornado, two-way table, scenario table, break-evens. The development front page with its four break-evens. The four waterfall tests and the list of what the term sheet did not say. And the one-page summary with the ninety-minute test.
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
Six on purpose, structure and time, seven on income, cost and capital, seven on valuation and returns, seven on debt, the capital stack and the waterfall, seven on development through to the modelling test, 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. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Chapters 9 and 12, Appendix C · Case one
Times four, and the hurdle that compounds
Chapter 9 says a quarterly IRR multiplied by four overstates by about a hundred basis points. It understates, at every positive rate: by 43 basis points at Meridian House’s 11.07 per cent, and by a hundred only near 17. Appendix D has it right. Then the word the chapter lists and never prices: in Appendix C’s joint venture, compounding the 8 per cent preferred return quarterly instead of simply takes the promote from 1,640,000 to 1,439,429.
Chapter 13, Appendix C · Case two
The scheme on the front page
Appendix C’s development, taken to the four break-evens Chapter 13 asks for: profit reaches zero at a 15.1 per cent fall in value, a 22.0 per cent cost overrun, 21 months of delay or a 6.48 per cent exit yield. The chapter’s illustrative “14 and 21 per cent” describes this very scheme. Six months of delay costs about 3.6 points on finance alone and 5.7 with site costs; the exact residual is 5,353,314.
Chapter 11 · Case three
The release price that protects the wrong covenant
Chapter 11 warns that selling the best asset out of a cross-collateralised pool can over-lever what is left. At a 115 per cent release price, selling the prime office improves every test. Selling the two highest-yielding assets breaches the debt yield, 9.48 per cent against 9.5, while the loan to value sits at 55. Keeping the debt yield on the industrial estate would need a 140 per cent release price.
The book publishes annual figures; the model behind them is quarterly. Rebuilding a quarterly
lease-event engine from a printed annual table requires convention choices the text does not
spell out. So the Cash Flow sheet of the Meridian model carries a live income engine
and the published figures beside it, with the variance shown — it lands within about
0.3% across the hold. The Debt, Returns and Sensitivity sheets run off the published cash
flow, so every headline number in Chapter 19 reproduces exactly.
That visible variance is deliberate. Chapter 3, Rule 4: a model must contain checks, and they
must be impossible to ignore. A companion file that quietly buried 0.3% would teach the
opposite of the book.
Go beyond the companion files
Real Estate Financial Modeling develops the complete framework behind these models, with the assumptions, trade-offs and worked examples tied together.
The workbooks open in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. They use
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
22 Sep 2026
Eight working documents, forty questions that mark themselves and three new cases. Each workbook can now be downloaded on its own. The archive again carries the main read-me, 00_START_HERE.md, which the previous archive had left out; the five workbooks have not changed.
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.
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 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.
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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