A rent roll is a property's list of units or suites with the tenant, the rent, the lease start and end dates, the deposit, and the status of each. It is the most direct evidence of what the building earns today and what is already contracted.
What to read first
- Count and occupancy. Total units, occupied units and vacant units. Check that the count matches the offering memorandum.
- Rent by unit type. The average in-place rent per type, and the spread within each type. A wide spread inside one floor plan is either a mix of old and renovated units or a data problem.
- Lease expirations. The share of leases ending in each of the next twelve to twenty-four months. A cluster of expirations is a rollover risk and an opportunity to reset rents.
- Concessions, charges and other income. Free rent, discounts, parking, pet and utility charges. Some rent rolls list rent net of concessions and some gross.
- Delinquency and past dues. Balances due, and units on notice or in eviction.
What it should tie to
- The T-12. Rental income on the trailing twelve months should be consistent with the rent roll once vacancy, move-ins and concessions are accounted for. A rent roll that implies much more income than the T-12 shows needs an explanation.
- The offering memorandum. Unit count, average rent and occupancy should match the figures in the marketing material, or the difference should be stated.
- Leases and estoppels. Where leases are available, a sample should confirm rent, term and options.
Red flags
Rents that are round numbers across a whole floor, many month-to-month tenants without an explanation, units listed as occupied with no lease dates, a date on the rent roll that is weeks old, and totals that do not equal the sum of the lines.