What is a rent roll and how do you use it?

For commercial and multifamily investors, no two documents are more fundamental to understand an investment than the Rent Roll and the Operating Statements. We will be studying the rent roll, looking at some case studies, and hopefully improving our due diligence process.

So what exactly is a rent roll?

A rent roll is a list of the rental units of an income property, with some basic details essential for basic property underwriting.  It is one of the foundational documents needed to property understand a rental property.  

Basic Items contained in a Rent Roll Items.

Exact Information can vary by property type, but these are the most common:

  1. List of units
  2. Name of Tenant
  3. Rent amounts
  4. Beds/Baths
  5. Square footages of units
  6. Rent Per Square foot
  7. Prior Balances
  8. Market Rent
  9. Loss to Lease
  10. Lease Start/End
  11. Additional Fees
  12. Security Deposit
  13. Notes
  14. Date the Rent Roll was created

Rent Roll Uses

  • Loan Applications—When purchasing a property, a lender is going to want to see a proper rent roll.   You may have to create the rent roll if the owner doesn’t have one.  
  • Market Research—Are the rents low compared to market?  Is there an opportunity to raise the rents?  
  • Lease Expirations—Are there leases expiring over the next 30 days?   Are the tenants month-to-month or do they have long-term leases?
  • Rental History—Are there balances on accounts growing, or shrinking? Are there a lot of vacancies?  Do the tenants pay on time?  

How do make a rent roll?

  1. Example – Download the template at the end of this article
  2. Ask – If you are considering purchasing a property, ask the owner for the details.
  3. Find the Source Documents – Leases, County Records, etc.

Case Study

I received a call from an owner of a quadplex, who wanted me to study the property. I asked him to send me rent rolls and operating statements.  He didn’t have them, but sent me the leases and two year’s tax returns.   I put together a rent roll, and immediately saw issues.  First, his rents were $100 low compared to comparable apartments.  Second, three out of four of his leases were month-to-month.  Third, he had MAJOR collection issues—two of his tenants hadn’t paid rent in over six months, and all of them were behind.  These issues were immediately obvious from a review of the rent roll.  When I asked him about this, he got quite defensive.  He’d grown quite attached to his tenants, and wasn’t willing to evict them.  Obviously, it was going to be very hard to sell the complex in the condition it was in, and I advised him to deal with his tenants before selling the complex.  I often think about that owner because I’m not sure he realized the state that his property was in, and a quick review of a simple rent roll would have really helped him to prepare his property for sale.

We’d love to hear your stories and lessons learned about reviewing rent rolls from prior deals!  Comment below!  Also please share this with people you think may benefit from reading.

Resources

Click here for a Free Excel Downloadable Rent Roll and PDF Rent Roll Template.

Article from Jeff Rohde on Roofstock with an overview of the Rent Roll.   Article from American Apartment Owner Association on the basics of the rent roll.

This post originally appeared in Jonathan Aceves’s blog and is republished with permission. 

Development Authority negotiates Greenjackets Stadium Lease

The former home of the Augusta Greenjackets is getting a second life. Last week Augusta leaders agreed on a deal to bring more entertainment to the Augusta area. A 10-year master lease agreement to bring big acts and events to the Lake Olmstead Stadium will have us seeing the area around Lake Olmstead transformed starting this April. The Augusta Commission voted and approved for the Augusta Development Authority’s “stadium master lease” of the facilities. C4 Live, the subtenant, will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make upgrades to the structure and in addition to Masters Week, we can expect other entertainment events through out the year. This is great news for Augusta and this piece of land getting a second life!

What’s a master lease, you may ask?  Here’s Bigger Pocket’s summary, but in short, it’s when an owner leases a space to a tenant who then has the right to sublease to another tenant.  The city of Augusta will lease to the EDA, who in turn will lease to C4 Live.  This is generally good when the landlord trusts the master tenant, but has no relationship to the subtenant–the master tenant is guaranteeing the performance of the lease.  

Augusta Medical Office Building Market Report

 

This is Jonathan Aceves wth Meybohm Commerical here with a brief update on the Medical office market. Click here to download the Report.  

 

Overall, well-located and in good condition, medical office space in Augusta is leasing for around $18/SF, and selling for around $150/SF.  As expected, offices in Evans commanded a premium (around $200/SF), and offices around Trinity sold at a discount ($120/SF).  This is slightly higher than standard office space, and tends to be clustered around hospital facilities:  University, Doctors, AU Health, and Trinity(University Hospital Summerville)

 

One outlier that we see is with the rise of Urgent and Prompt Care clinics, which tend to lease in line with NNN leased retail space.  We are seeing them leasing at around $30/SF NNN and trading at corporately-guaranteed retail cap rates. There has definitely been a rise in Medical/Dental/Physical Therapy providers taking space in shopping centers and even developing practices on retail out-parcels.  The impact is that these lease rates fall in line with their competitors for these spaces.  

 

POB Buildings.  The POB buildings are a good milestone–what would it cost a physician to locate inside the hospital complex, with a full-service lease?  Asking rates there tend to be around $25/SF Full Service, potentially you could lease space there between $20-21/SF.  If we back out the full-service items, it’s a helpful comparison.  That might get us to a rate around 18/SF. 

 

Renovation of office buildings.  Another helpful number is what would it cost a physician or dentist to purchase a 4000 SF building and convert it to a medical practice?  Our guess is that in good condition, it would cost around $25/SF. so in theory an office building could be purchased and 100-150K invested in it to make the conversion.  Alternatively, an office could be leased, and the improvements amortized into the rent, which would equate to 4-5/SF/YR on the rate.  At those numbers, it is slightly more cost-efficient to lease or purchase an existing medical office than to convert an office building into a  practice (which makes sense).  

 

On a related note, we are seeing a large demand for purchase of NNN leased medical office space.  If you own a practice and the real estate, it may be a great retirement planning tool to investigate the value of leasing back the building and selling the real estate.   Also if you are selling your practice or looking towards retirement, it might be a good idea to sell the practice along with a  lease on the building, and then sell the leased building. That may be a great way to cash out of your investment and give your new partners a fixed and budgetable cost.

 

Notable Sale:

Augusta GYN sold their building earlier this year to University Hospital.  

 

Notable Lease:  

Pruitt Health.  12.60/FT, Modified Gross.  1220 Augusta West Parkway.  

 

Thanks for reading!  Please let us know your thoughts on the market for medical office buildings.  What are you seeing?  What’s your experience been?