An owner who holds a commercial property has three choices as a loan comes due: hold, sell or refinance. Each one rests on the same few numbers, and the numbers a buyer or a lender will use are often not the ones in the owner's own memorandum. The six questions below are the ones owners and asset managers ask. Each is answered in the first paragraph, then shown on one finished Titleman run and on three Texas counties.
Prepared by Titleman AI, on behalf of the Titleman team. The worked example is one finished engine run on a Titleman QA account in October 2026, made on a sample 120-unit multifamily package with no client data and no address; the refinance and cap-rate rows apply the run's verified balance and NOI to hypothetical rates. County counts were read on 17 October 2026. A screen is not an appraisal, a loan quote or a credit decision.
Should I hold, sell or refinance a commercial property I own, and what numbers decide it?
Three numbers decide it: the income a buyer or lender will actually use (your trailing-12 NOI, not the marketed figure), what that income covers at today's refinance rate, and what it is worth at today's cap rate. If the income covers the debt and the value stays above the loan, holding is open. If not, the gap is the cash you must bring, or the reason to sell.
The read has three parts, and each uses the property's own documents:
- The income. Rebuild NOI from the trailing-12 statement and the current rent roll. Compare it with the figure in your offering memorandum or your last report. This is the number every outside reader starts from.
- The refinance test. Price the loan balance at today's rate and divide the NOI by the debt service. Lenders commonly look for 1.25x or more. The supported loan is the smaller of what coverage allows and what the loan-to-value limit allows.
- The sale test. Divide the same NOI by a cap rate to get what a buyer's model will say the property is worth, and compare it with the balance and with your basis.
Then add what is happening around the asset: loans coming due in your county, owners under pressure, and sales nearby. That part is the weekly list described below. Neither part makes the decision. Hold, sell or refinance stays with the owner and the investment committee.
Can my loan be refinanced at today's rates, and how much of the balance will a lender fund?
Test it before the lender does. Price the balance at today's rate, divide your trailing-12 NOI by the debt service, then divide the same NOI by a cap rate to get a value. The refinance sizes to the smaller of the two results. In the worked example below, a $14,040,000 balance covers 0.97x at 6.5% and would refinance for about $10.3 million, $3.75 million short.
The example is one finished Titleman run on a QA account in October 2026: a sample 120-unit multifamily package with no client data and no address. The run read three files (the offering memorandum, the T-12 with rent roll, and an underwriting model) and returned its findings 49 minutes after upload. The package carried a loan of $14,040,000. Treat it as the balance coming due, and apply hypothetical rates of 6.5%.
| Test | Result at 6.5% |
|---|---|
| Annual debt service on $14,040,000 (30-year amortization) | $1,064,908 |
| Coverage on the T-12 NOI of $1,029,089 | 0.97x |
| Coverage on the NOI marketed in the memorandum, $1,312,400 | 1.23x |
| Value on the T-12 NOI at a 6.5% cap rate | $15,832,000 |
| Balance as a share of that value | 88.7% |
| Loan supported at 65% of value | $10,291,000 |
| Gap to the balance | $3,749,000 (27% of the balance) |
The value test binds, so the refinance sizes to about $10.3 million. The owner would need to bring, extend around or sell to find $3.75 million. On the marketed figure the same loan looks nearly fine, which is why the first step is the income. For the lender's side of the same arithmetic, rates and a 72-hour schedule, see refinancing a CRE loan maturing in 2027.
What would a buyer pay for my property, and why does the NOI in my offering memorandum not hold up?
A buyer divides the NOI they can verify by a cap rate. They rebuild that NOI from your trailing-12 statement, not from the memorandum. In the worked example the memorandum showed $1,312,400 and the T-12 it cites totals $1,029,089, $283,311 lower. At the memorandum's own 6.08% cap rate that is $16.9 million, not $21.6 million.
The run traced the whole gap to one line. Operating expenses were $678,555 in the memorandum and $961,866 on the T-12, a 34.1% expense ratio against 48.3%. It also checked the occupancy: the memorandum said 96.0%, and the rent roll dated 30 September 2026 showed 110 of 120 units occupied, 91.7%.
At a guidance price of $21,600,000 the memorandum's NOI implies a 6.08% cap rate. The same cap rate applied to the T-12 NOI gives a different value:
| Cap rate | Value on the memorandum NOI | Value on the T-12 NOI | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.75% | $22,824,000 | $17,897,000 | $4,927,000 |
| 6.08% | $21,586,000 | $16,926,000 | $4,660,000 |
| 6.50% | $20,191,000 | $15,832,000 | $4,359,000 |
| 7.00% | $18,749,000 | $14,701,000 | $4,047,000 |
A price negotiated on the first column and re-cut on the second can cost the seller time, and sometimes the deal. Finding the gap yourself, before the property goes to market, lets you fix the memorandum, explain the expense line or price accordingly. It is the same check a buyer's analyst runs, and it is what Deal Review does for a deal package: every figure is marked verified, to review or red flag on a copy of your files, with the page or cell behind it. For a seller's view of the same question, see what a Deal Review catches before you sign.
How do I find out which loans are coming due in my county, and whether mine is one of them?
Filter the loans on record by the property's county and the maturity window, and read each loan's balance, rate and payment status. Titleman does this across 2,100+ sources and dates every fact. In Travis County, Texas, 18 of the 129 loans on record mature within 24 months, $430.5 million of the $3.77 billion outstanding. Not every loan is on record, so a county list is a floor.
Loans coming due are the debt side of a county's signals. They tell an owner who else will be refinancing at the same time, and where lenders are likely to be cautious. The table reads three Texas counties on 17 October 2026. Each row counts live loans on record with at least one property in the county; the loan records are dated 22 September to 6 October 2026.
| County | Loans on record | Balance | Maturing in 24 months | of which in 12 months | With a warning sign |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travis | 129 | $3,774.5M | 18 ($430.5M) | 9 ($200.6M) | 12 ($361.8M) |
| Williamson | 59 | $1,367.1M | 9 ($304.4M) | 8 ($239.4M) | 5 ($100.9M) |
| Fort Bend | 64 | $1,475.1M | 12 ($278.6M) | 5 ($47.9M) | 7 ($119.2M) |
A warning sign here means a payment 30 or more days late or in default, a loan in workout, or reported debt coverage below 1.00x. In Williamson County, 7 of the 9 loans maturing within 24 months carry a coupon under 5%, the group that faces the largest step up at refinance. Many bank balance-sheet loans never appear in these records, so the counts are a floor, not a census. Coverage varies by county, and Titleman says what your county holds before the first list.
To see whether your own loan is on the list, send the address. A maturity date is a fact. Whether the owner refinances, extends or sells is not. See also how to find loans maturing in a county.
Which signals around my own assets should an owner or asset manager watch, and how do I get them every week?
Watch the debt, the owner, the distress and the income signals for your county and property type: loans maturing or weak on coverage, recent sales, rezoning filed, occupancy down. Titleman Signals tracks 48 signals in 7 groups and sends the properties where something just changed, each with its reason and the date of the record behind it, to your inbox, WhatsApp, Telegram or CRM every week.
Owners usually look at their own building and miss what moved around it. The signals that matter to an owner or asset manager:
- Debt. Loans maturing in your county, interest-only or balloon structures, weak coverage, loans in workout. These show who will be selling, extending or competing for the same lenders.
- Deals and market. Just sold, with the date and the buyer. A nearby sale resets what buyers will say your property is worth.
- Distress. Tax delinquency, foreclosure filed, auction scheduled, code violations. Pressure on a neighbor shows up in rents and in values before it shows up in a report.
- Income and tenants. Occupancy down, NOI down, an anchor lease expiring, a tenant closing, on the assets you track.
- Development sites. Rezoning filed, a new construction permit, land just bought. Supply is news for an owner of competing space.
You name the territory: counties, property types, sizes and the signals your desk acts on. The list comes weekly, one row per property, with the reason it is on the list, the owner of record, the loan facts where there is a loan, and a map and spreadsheet. See Signals for an example list, and Tampa and Miami-Dade for county examples.
How long does a hold, sell or refinance read take, and what do I need to send?
Send the T-12 operating statement, the current rent roll, the offering memorandum or your last report if you have one, and the loan terms. In the worked example the engine read three files and returned its findings 49 minutes after upload. The rest of the time goes to the decision: the numbers arrive the same day, and the choice stays with you.
A suggested order, not a service-level promise, for an owner with a loan maturing in the next 12 to 24 months:
- Day one: send the documents. The run in this page's example read an offering memorandum, a T-12 with rent roll and an underwriting model. It checked 633 claims and recomputed 568 formulas, and it found that the model's loan cell, $15,120,000, did not match its own formula, which gives $14,040,000.
- Day one: read the three numbers: the T-12 NOI against the marketed figure, coverage at today's rate, and value at two or three cap rates.
- Within the week: ask for the document that closes each open item (a current rent roll, a lender's term sheet, a payoff letter), and look at the signals for your county.
- Before the maturity window opens: decide among extending, paying down, refinancing or selling, with the gap in dollars in front of you.
A loan checked eleven months before maturity gives you time to bring cash. A loan checked eleven days before gives you a negotiation with no room.
The read is a screen for you and your advisers, not an appraisal, a loan quote or a credit decision. Findings are marked on a copy of your files; your originals stay as they were.
Run it on a property you own
Send the T-12 and rent roll of a property you own, or name a county, and we will run the read: the income a buyer will use, what a lender will fund at today's rates, and the loans coming due around you. Request a demo.