Asset underwriting

Cash first, financing second

Every deal is underwritten as if the buyer were paying cash. If the asset cannot carry itself unlevered, financing does not fix it — it only decides who absorbs the problem. Leverage enters the analysis after the property has earned its way in.

Seller packages get re-underwritten line by line. Management costed at a real rate rather than an optimistic one, insurance at current market, reserves that acknowledge things break — the version of the numbers a lender and an appraiser will recognize.

The downside gets read first

The first questions are about what can go wrong: vacancy the submarket has actually produced, replacement-tenant difficulty, capital items coming due. A deal that only works when everything goes right does not work. And for nearly any asset there is a number at which it does — the analysis exists to find that number honestly.

Ongoing asset discipline

For held assets, the same reading continues: rents held against the market, expenses held against the budget, and the property’s position re-examined as the submarket moves.