What do your books look like before you walk into a financing conversation?
There's a lot of discussion about deal analysis, LTV, DSCR, and what lenders want to see in terms of the property numbers. What I don't see discussed is the state of your actual books when you show up and how much that affects the outcome. I've seen investors with solid deals lose time or terms because the financials they handed over were disorganized. The property wasn't bad but the income and expense history was shown as a blended portfolio number. The expenses weren't organized / clearly separated or the trailing 12-month NOI had to be rebuilt by the lender's underwriter because the investor's books didn't produce it cleanly. Lenders build their own T12 regardless. However showing up with clean, property-level financials already prepared, you move faster, create less friction, and walk into the conversation from a position of credibility rather than damage control. It also shows the lender something about how you run your portfolio that the deal numbers alone don't. Curious what people here actually bring to a lender meeting... are you producing property-level P&L statements before you apply or just relying on what the lender pulls together on their end?
- Aaron Weikle
