MODEL DESIGN
How to Build a Quick Acquisition Screener for Commercial Real Estate
Overview
ARTICLE IN PROGRESS
We're writing a deep engineering essay on AQ-001. How we built it, the design choices behind it, and how to use it. The model itself is live and available today.
AQ-001 is a one-page triage tool for the top of the acquisition funnel. It takes the inputs a broker teaser actually gives you and produces a pass/no-pass verdict with implied going-in cap rate, stabilized NOI, levered IRR, equity multiple, DSCR, and a 5x5 sensitivity matrix. The screener exists because the alternative, spinning up a full pro forma for every teaser, is how analysts lose a week reviewing deals that never made it past the second filter.
Planned Sections
When the full piece is published, it will cover:
- The triage problem. How to reduce dozens of broker teasers to a shortlist without burning a week.
- Why we made the screener a single page rather than a multi-tab pro forma.
- Design choice: 5x5 sensitivity matrix vs explicit Upside/Downside scenarios.
- Design choice: implied going-in cap rate, stabilized NOI, levered IRR. The metrics that actually drive pass/no-pass.
- What the screener deliberately omits (no monthly cash flow, no waterfall, no debt sizing logic).
- How to use the verdict output in a deal-flow review.
For an example of the engineering-essay format this article will follow, see how we engineered AQ-141, the Multifamily Opportunistic Pro Forma Model.
About the Model
AQ-001 is a Pocket-tier, cross-asset acquisition screener. It runs on the limited set of inputs available in a typical broker teaser and outputs the metrics needed to decide whether a deal is worth a full underwriting. Built for brokers and REPE analysts working high-velocity deal flow.