What is the difference between a rent roll and a T12?

A rent roll is a snapshot of today's leases. A T12 is what the property actually collected and spent over 12 months. Compare the two: a gap between them is worth explaining.

What is loss to lease?

The gap between market rent and the rent tenants actually pay. If a unit could rent for $1,525 and pays $1,450, the loss to lease is $75 a month.

What is the difference between physical and economic occupancy?

Physical occupancy counts units with tenants in them. Economic occupancy compares rent actually collected with potential rent, so it falls with concessions and unpaid rent even when units are full.

Who provides the rent roll?

Usually the seller or property manager, from the property's management system, often in the deal's data room. Ask for the Excel export, dated recently.

Is my rent roll uploaded when I use this tool?

No. The analysis runs in your browser, and your data is not sent to Pacific Software Ventures or saved. This page has no sign-up.

Free tool and guide

What is a rent roll? and how to analyze one

A rent roll shows who is in the building and what they pay. Paste one into the free analyzer below for occupancy, loss to lease and rollover, plus the questions to ask.

Use the Rent roll analyzer Read the guide

A rent roll is a list of every unit or suite at a property on a given date, with its tenant, area, rent and lease dates. Buyers and lenders use it to see the income in place today, and when it can change.

Rent roll analyzer

Paste a rent roll to get occupancy, in-place rent, loss to lease and the leases ending in the next year, and to flag zero-rent units, past-due lease ends and duplicates. It runs in your browser: your numbers are not uploaded, saved or tracked, and there is no sign-up.

Paste your rent roll from Excel or a CSV

Include the header row. It looks for unit, tenant, area, rent, market rent, lease end and status columns. PDFs need converting to a spreadsheet first.

Upload a CSVBlank template

Rent roll date

Showing an invented sample property

Physical occupancy: 80.0%; 8 of 10 lines occupied
Annual in-place rent: $135,420; $11,285 a month
Loss to lease: $21,780; 13.9% of market, on occupied units
Average rent, occupied: $1,411; $19.91 per SF per year
Ending in 12 months: 6; $97,200 of annual rent
No lease end date: 1; Month to month, or missing

What to ask about

1 occupied line shows no rent (201). Free rent, a model, or an employee unit?
1 occupied lease has an end date already past. Are those tenants on holdover, month to month, or gone?
6 leases end in the next 12 months, covering $97,200 of annual rent.
1 line is above the market rent entered. That income may fall when those leases roll.
Compare the rent total with the T12's latest month. A gap means concessions, delinquency or a stale rent roll.

Flags come from arithmetic and missing data, not market benchmarks. A flag is a question to ask, not a verdict.

What a rent roll includes

Layouts vary by property type and management system, but expect:

Unit or suite, with its type and area.
Tenant, and whether the unit is occupied, vacant, or a model or employee unit.
Rent in place, and often the market rent next to it.
Lease dates, start and end, with any month-to-month tenants.
Other charges and concessions, such as deposits, parking, or free rent.
In commercial property: escalations, options, expense recoveries and the lease type.

Download a blank rent roll template (CSV). It opens in Excel and has the columns the analyzer reads.

How to analyze a rent roll, in order

Check the date. A stale rent roll hides move-outs. Ask for one dated within the last few weeks.
Find the occupied units paying little or nothing. Free rent, models and employee units all count as occupied, and none of them pays full rent.
Compare in-place rent with market rent. That gap is loss to lease. It is upside only if the market rent is real and the tenants can be moved up.
Map when leases end. Clustered expirations mean a lot of income renews at once.
Check who pays the most. In commercial property especially, one tenant can carry the building. Read that lease first.
Tie it to the T12. Annualize the rent roll, and compare it with the last months of the T12. Leases are promises, and the T12 shows what was collected.

Occupancy and loss to lease

Physical occupancy	Occupied units or area, divided by the total
Economic occupancy	Rent collected, divided by gross potential rent
Loss to lease	Market rent less in-place rent, on occupied units
Gross potential rent	Rent if every unit were leased at the stated rate
Rollover	Rent on leases ending in a given period

Where rent rolls mislead

Concessions outside the rent. A lease can show full rent with months free. Ask for concessions by unit.
Delinquent tenants. A rent roll usually shows what is owed, not what is paid. Ask for an aged receivables report.
Market rent that is an opinion. Check it against recent signed leases and comps.
Recent lease-ups. Rent signed just before a sale can include incentives. Compare lease dates with the sale timeline.
Holdovers. A lease end date in the past often means a tenant with no firm commitment.

Using AI to review a rent roll

An AI assistant can do the first read, as long as it quotes the unit for each finding. Rent rolls hold tenants' names, so check your plan's data terms first: see is AI safe for CRE deal documents? Here is a prompt to start with:

Review this rent roll.
List occupied units showing little or no rent.
List leases with an end date that has already passed.
Name the unit for each finding. If a field is blank or unclear, say so.

To go further, the Claude underwriting workflow covers the rent roll with the OM and T-12.

Frequently asked

What is a rent roll?: A document listing every unit or suite at a property on a given date, with its tenant, area, rent and lease dates. It shows who is paying what, right now.
What is the difference between a rent roll and a T12?: A rent roll is a snapshot of today's leases. A T12 is what the property actually collected and spent over 12 months. Compare the two: a gap between them is worth explaining.
What is loss to lease?: The gap between market rent and the rent tenants actually pay. If a unit could rent for $1,525 and pays $1,450, the loss to lease is $75 a month.
What is the difference between physical and economic occupancy?: Physical occupancy counts units with tenants in them. Economic occupancy compares rent actually collected with potential rent, so it falls with concessions and unpaid rent even when units are full.
Who provides the rent roll?: Usually the seller or property manager, from the property's management system, often in the deal's data room. Ask for the Excel export, dated recently.
Is my rent roll uploaded when I use this tool?: No. The analysis runs in your browser, and your data is not sent to Pacific Software Ventures or saved. This page has no sign-up.

Pacific Software Ventures built this tool and guide, and sells AI consulting and training to commercial real estate firms. This is general education, not investment, legal or tax advice.

Next step

Doing this on every deal? Let AI do the first read.

Ten minutes. An honest read on where AI would save your team time, and which option fits, including when it is not us.

Get your free AI assessment Try a free Institute lesson