Analysis / Investment Underwriting
Examine the investment from the inside out.
Real estate investment underwriting software for examining an acquisition. Bring property evidence, income, costs, purchase terms and financing into a financial case your team can review.
Discuss investment underwritingA worked investment example / Office acquisition
Follow the income.
Then follow your equity.
One fictional 2,000 m² office, bought for AED 20m and sold after five years. Change the vacancy and exit assumptions, then inspect the rent, debt and sale proceeds behind the result.
- Initial equity
- AED 9m Including AED 1m acquisition costs
- Interest-only debt
- AED 12m 6% interest; repaid at sale
- Starting annual rent
- AED 2m 2% annual growth
- Starting operating costs
- AED 400k 2.5% annual growth
What happens to your equity?
AED 20m office · AED 9m initial equity · five-year holdChoose a vacancy allowance and exit yield to explore four recorded Feasly calculations. This demo displays saved results; it does not run a new appraisal.
Income becomes cash.
Year one · see what remains after the outgoings.
- Gross rent
- AED 2,000,000
- Less vacancy
- −AED 100,000
- Less operating costs
- −AED 400,000
- Net operating income
- AED 1,500,000
- Less loan interest
- −AED 720,000
- Cash to the investor
- AED 780,000
The outlined bars show deductions. The filled bars show the money remaining.
Value becomes proceeds.
Year five · the loan is repaid when you sell.
- Gross sale value
- AED 21,534,613
- Less selling costs
- −AED 323,019
- Less loan repayment
- −AED 12,000,000
- Sale proceeds to equity
- AED 9,211,593
Sale proceeds exclude year five’s operating cash, which is counted in the income below.
Two sources.
One equity return.
Five years of cash after interest, plus the proceeds from selling the property.
- Operating cash · years 1–5
- AED 4,185,145
- Net sale proceeds
- AED 9,211,593
- Total cash returned
- AED 13,396,738
Compared with AED 9m invested at acquisition. Total returned includes recovery of your capital; it is not all profit. IRR also reflects when each cash flow occurs.
Base
5% vacancy · 7.5% exit yield- Equity IRR
- 9.63% The recorded starting case
- Total cash returned to equity
- AED 13.40m 1.49× the AED 9m invested, over five years
- Year-one interest coverage
- 2.08× NOI / interest; excludes principal repayment
- Property IRR, before debt
- 7.57% Uses property cash flows, including acquisition costs
The starting case pays interest and returns more than the initial equity. It still needs to meet the investor’s return hurdle and withstand downside review.
Amounts are rounded to the nearest AED. Each chart has its own scale. Total cash returned includes operating cash and net sale proceeds, with no double counting.
Inspect the selected case’s annual equity cash flows
- Acquisition
- AED -9,000,000
- 2027
- AED 780,000
- 2028
- AED 808,000
- 2029
- AED 836,510
- 2030
- AED 865,539
- 2031, including sale
- AED 10,106,689
Fictional, pre-tax example. No capital works, reserves, tenant-level lease events or refinancing. Debt is interest-only and repaid in full at sale. IRRs and coverage come from the Feasly Calculation Engine. Explore the assumptions and results.
| Case | Vacancy / exit yield | Equity IRR | Total cash to equity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | 5% / 7.5% | 9.63% | AED 13.40m |
| Higher vacancy | 15% / 7.5% | 1.28% | AED 9.51m |
| Softer exit yield | 5% / 9% | 2.22% | AED 9.86m |
| Combined downside | 15% / 9% | -7.73% | AED 6.45m |
Inspect the complete investment case.
The detailed example sets out all four recorded calculations, the annual cash flows and downloadable assumptions.
Read the full worked exampleSee a lease-level underwriting workspace Separate example: Harbour Exchange
Harbour Exchange
From the leases
to the investment case.
Inspect the investment assumptions
Scroll across to inspect the original capture.
Build the case.
Review documents and extracted information, or work directly with supported model inputs. Keep the assumptions open to inspection.
Investigate the outcome.
Examine income, financing and exit together. Distinguish property returns from equity returns and explore supported sensitivities.
Prepare the decision.
Bring reviewed assumptions and results into the investment memorandum, with a clear basis for the recommendation.
Choosing investment underwriting software.
When should I use Feasly for real estate investment underwriting?
Consider Feasly when you want to examine an income-property acquisition in a saved financial model, keep the supporting documents with the case and compare alternatives without losing Base. The underwriting workspace connects supported property, income, purchase, expense, financing and exit assumptions. Review property and equity returns separately, then investigate what changes the investment decision. Establish that the current workflow supports your lease structure, debt terms, currency and required reporting before choosing it for an assignment.
How is investment underwriting different from development feasibility?
Development feasibility follows land, construction, programme, sales or rental receipts and the capital needed to deliver a project. Investment underwriting begins with the property and income you are buying, then examines operating costs, future works, financing and exit. A refurbishment or build-to-rent case can involve both. Select the workflow and financial methods around the decision, rather than assuming one headline yield or development margin answers every question.
What should a commercial property underwriting demonstration prove?
Use a known acquisition with a reconciled rent schedule, operating costs, capital works, debt and exit assumptions. Follow cash from the property to the investor, preserve Base and test material changes separately. Our fictional office example records four saved Feasly calculations: the combined vacancy and exit-yield downside takes equity IRR from 9.63% to negative 7.73% while annual income still covers interest. The downloadable inputs, engine KPIs and separate annual reconciliation expose that difference. The example uses aggregate income and excludes capital works, tax and tenant-level lease events; confirm the methods needed for your own assignment.
How should I compare Feasly with ARGUS Enterprise, Forbury or ReturnSuite?
Start with your acquisition and required deliverable. Compare lease and expense methods, financing, exit conventions, scenario handling and the work needed to inspect and update the model. Our guide links each vendor’s published workflow and distinguishes it from Feasly’s public evidence. Try the four recorded office cases without an account, then test your actual requirements in a product demonstration. We have not run a common cross-vendor benchmark and do not claim that these products are interchangeable.
Can I work with an underwriting model in ChatGPT?
Bring your Feasly financial work into ChatGPT. Open a saved project, work on a development or investment model, and save scenarios to the same Feasly workspace. Available by invitation during private preview. Feasly has been submitted for review in the ChatGPT directory; public installation is not yet available. A Feasly sign-in is required for saved projects.