Investor · Tulsa, OK · Member since 2015 · 19 posts · 10 votes
there seems to be numerous pre-purchase analysis software programs for creating a pro-forma for multifamily Acquisitions, available in the market. We are searching for one that is user-friendly and has a module for presentation purposes to lenders and investors as well. Thank you for your valuable feedback
Rental Property Investor · Southport, CT · Member since 2008 · 160 posts · 137 votes
10y
Point well taken… but there is more to consider.
I agree that Excel is the ideal platform for analyzing and projecting income-property performance. That’s why we’ve used it as the basis of our software since Excel was launched in 1984 (and before that, we used its predecessor MultiPlan). It provides an intuitive interface and a powerful calculation engine, which would be very costly for us to duplicate.
But to make a tool that is both powerful and usable means we have to do a lot more that is not visible to the user as part of the familiar Excel skin. My company's Excel-based REIA program uses well over 10,000 lines of VBA code that is hidden from the user, but which provides functionality like custom menus and toolbars, data-input wizards, report customization, etc. And we use dozens of hidden worksheets to do things like formatting reports on the fly, maintaining database info, or performing calculations that are too complex or too cumbersome to include on visible sheets. So it may seem counterintuitive, but we do a lot of complicated stuff in the background to make it simple and easy for the user working in Excel's foreground.
And of course there is the issue of reliability. Who of us (myself included) hasn’t put together a quick spreadsheet only to discover — sometimes a little later than we would like — that a typo in a formula has led to unintended results? While nothing is perfect, our models have undergone 34 years of improvement and refinement, so we’re pretty confident that they’re reliable.
So yes, Excel is the essential ingredient, but I would submit that there is indeed a difference between a basic Excel spreadsheet and an Excel-based program like ours.