For sponsors & acquisitions teams
The acquisitions desk, without the analyst.
River reads the offering memo the way a committee reads it. It rebuilds the pro forma from the rent roll and the trailing twelve instead of trusting the broker's, surveys real comps, screens the address against the local rules that actually change the numbers, and writes the IC memo — including the case against. Every number sourced or labeled an assumption.
Free account to start · Every figure carries its source · Private to your account
What it does
Five things a good acquisitions analyst does for you
Not the parts that require relationships or a site visit. The parts that require reading four hundred pages carefully, doing the arithmetic twice, and being willing to say the deal does not work.
Underwriting
A model where every line says where it came from
Built from the rent roll and the trailing twelve. The broker’s pro forma is quoted, never used as an input.
River rebuilds the pro forma from the underlying documents: gross potential rent from the rent roll unit by unit, expenses from the T-12 with one-time items stripped, taxes reset to a reassessed basis, insurance to a real quote, management to your standard fee, and reserves that no operating statement ever contains. Every line carries a Source column that the agent fills. Anything that is a judgment call rather than a document lands in the Assumption Register with its basis, its sensitivity, and the name of the person who could turn it into a fact.
- Sources and uses, a five-year cash flow, and debt sized against the constraint that actually binds
- A line-by-line bridge from the seller’s NOI to the one you can defend in committee
- Taxes reset to a post-sale reassessment, not carried at the seller’s basis
- Management fee, reserves, and a real vacancy factor added because your criteria say so
- Returns shown next to your hurdles with an explicit pass or miss — no rounding toward yes
- Every assumption registered with its sensitivity, so committee sees what the answer depends on
OM & Financials
Find the three NOIs hiding in one offering memo
Twenty minutes to know whether the deal deserves another hour.
An offering memo usually contains a trailing NOI, an in-place NOI, and a pro forma NOI, and the cap rate on the cover is computed from whichever one is largest. Almost nobody recomputes the other two, which is exactly why the cover number works.
River separates the NOIs the memo blurs together, recomputes the implied cap rate on each, and lists the standard omissions in order of how much they move the number — taxes at the seller’s basis, no management fee, no reserves, a legacy insurance policy, a one-time item buried in other income. Then it reconciles the OM against the documents behind it: the rent roll against the T-12, the stated unit count against the tax record, the square footage against the assessor.
- Trailing, in-place, and pro forma NOI separated, with the cap rate each one implies
- Every expense omission priced against your standing assumptions
- Rent roll reconciled to the T-12, and the OM reconciled to the public tax record
- One-time income and non-recurring expense credits flagged with the page they came from
- A go or no-go on whether the deal is worth a full underwrite, with the reason
Rent Roll & Regulation
Loss to lease is not the same as capturable upside
Unit by unit, with the regulated units and the expiry schedule flagged individually.
A rent roll summary page shows total loss to lease. What it does not show is that most of it sits in units with tenants of twelve years, leases that expire in month 19, and a statewide cap on in-place increases — which turns a headline number into a five-year plan.
River reads the roll unit by unit against real comps: loss to lease per unit, the turnover schedule the roll actually supports, non-revenue units the summary quietly excludes, concessions that make an asking rent an effective rent, and clustered expirations that concentrate your exposure into one quarter. Then it screens the address itself — rent regulation coverage at this vintage, allowable increases, tenant protection and relocation rules, retrofit and inspection mandates, and the local transfer tax — prices each one into the model, and routes the reading to counsel.
- Every unit priced against comps, with capturable upside separated from headline loss to lease
- Regulated and exempt units flagged individually against the building’s actual vintage
- Non-revenue units, employee units, and down units the summary page omitted
- Concessions converted to effective rent, so the roll stops overstating itself
- Clustered expirations surfaced as a risk, not a schedule
- Local rules priced into the model and routed to counsel — research, never a legal opinion
Sensitivity & Debt
The price at which this deal stops working
Ranked inputs, two-way grids, and solved break-evens — not a base case with a smile.
Most deals are killed by the exit cap and saved by the pencil. Ranking your inputs by how much they actually move the return usually reveals that the thing everyone argued about for an hour moves it by forty basis points, and the thing nobody mentioned moves it by four hundred.
River ranks every input by its effect on the return, builds the two-way grids that matter, and solves the break-evens outright: the occupancy, the exit cap, and the rent premium at which the deal stops clearing your hurdles. On the debt side it normalizes term sheets onto one grid, computes all-in cost over the real hold rather than the quoted term, finds the binding constraint and your appraisal-shortfall exposure, and reads the covenants for what they do in the downside rather than at closing.
- Inputs ranked by return sensitivity, so committee argues about the right variable
- Two-way grids on exit cap, rent premium, occupancy, and rate
- Break-evens solved, not eyeballed — including the rent premium no nearby comp has achieved
- Term sheets normalized: all-in cost over the real hold, not the quoted rate
- The binding constraint identified — LTV, DSCR, or debt yield — and the appraisal gap it exposes
- Covenants read for the downside case, with the cure provisions named
Committee & Offer
The memo, and the argument against it
Including the walk-away price, taken from the model rather than the mood in the room.
Every acquisitions team has a version of the deal that got approved because the person presenting it wanted it. The cheapest protection against that is a written bear case produced by something that has no position.
River writes the full IC memo — the seller-versus-underwritten bridge, every return against its hurdle, risks ranked by threat to equity, and a sources section that traces each figure back to its document. Then it argues the deal down: eight committee scores, the two-minute verbal a skeptical partner would give before a vote, the three things most likely to kill it, and the price at which the bear case still clears your hurdles. On the offer side it produces LOI terms and a diligence period built backward from real third-party lead times, with every date where deposit money goes at risk.
- Full IC memo with a sources section traceable line by line
- Eight committee scores and the verbal summary a partner would actually give
- The three specific things most likely to kill the deal, ranked
- A walk-away price and an expected settlement price computed from the model
- Diligence period built backward from real vendor lead times, not a round number
- Every critical date where deposit money goes hard, with the deposit at risk on each
Who it's for
Anyone who underwrites their own deals
Smaller sponsors and solo buyers get the most out of it, because they are the ones doing the analyst work themselves at eleven at night.
Small and mid-size sponsors
The analyst you have not hired. Screen more deals, underwrite the ones worth it properly, and stop losing a week to a deal the tax reassessment was always going to kill.
Solo and first-time buyers
The institutional process, written down. You get the checklist a committee would apply, including the questions you would not have known to ask.
Family offices
A consistent underwriting standard across every deal the family sees, with an assumption register that makes two deals actually comparable.
Acquisitions analysts
The mechanical half of the job — rent roll audits, T-12 normalization, comp surveys, data room indexing — done in an hour so you spend the day on judgment.
1031 exchange buyers
A hard deadline is the worst possible negotiating position. Screen faster against a written buy box, and get told plainly when a deal only works because the clock is running.
Brokers and capital advisors
Run your client’s underwriting before you send the OM, so the pushback you get is one you already have an answer for.
What you get
The whole workspace, set up in one click
A configured workspace with twelve runnable playbooks, four working spreadsheets, six documents, five automations, and the AI rule that keeps every figure traceable.
AI Skills and Playbooks you can run
12- Read the OM Skeptically — the three NOIs and the cap each one implies
- Rent Roll Audit — unit by unit, with capturable upside separated out
- Normalize the T-12 — the bridge to an NOI you can defend
- Underwrite This Deal — sources and uses, cash flow, debt, returns vs. hurdles
- Sensitivity & Break-Even — ranked inputs, two-way grids, solved break-evens
- Debt Quote Comparison — term sheets normalized to all-in cost over the hold
- Rent Comp Survey — asking versus achieved, adjusted to your unit mix
- Sale Comps & Basis Check — cap rates recomputed, adjusted for the rate environment
- Regulatory & Rent Control Screen — priced into the model, routed to counsel
- LOI Terms & Critical Dates — walk-away price and a real diligence calendar
- Investment Committee Memo — the full memo with a traceable sources section
- Bear Case Review — eight scores and the argument against the deal
Documents and automations
15- Investment Criteria — buy box, hurdles, and the standing assumptions every model reads
- Assumption Register — every judgment call with its basis and sensitivity
- Underwriting Model — a real spreadsheet with a Source column on every line
- Deal Pipeline — every deal, with your cap next to theirs
- Rent & Sale Comps — comps with a confidence level on every figure
- Diligence Tracker — critical dates, findings, and deposit at risk
- Deal Brief — the one-page summary, rebuilt as the deal develops
- Data Room Index — what arrived, what it establishes, what is still missing
- Submarket Brief — long-form market research you keep between deals
- IC Memo — the committee document, sourced line by line
- Source every number — the space rule that governs every playbook
- Deal Logger — forward a broker blast, get a screened pipeline row
- Data Room Intake — indexes and reconciles every document that lands
- Market Watch — weekly — trades, rates, and proposed ordinances
- Diligence Digest — weekday — critical dates and deposit at risk
Fill in your Investment Criteria, drop an OM into the Deal Room, and run the skeptical read. Most buyers know whether a deal is worth another hour inside their first twenty minutes.
Get the free workspaceHow it stays honest
Built so committee can check the work
Every number is sourced or labeled
The rule is enforced on the agent, not promised in marketing. Each line in the model carries the document it came from. Anything that is a judgment call lands in the Assumption Register with its basis and its sensitivity, so committee can see exactly what the answer depends on.
The seller’s pro forma is never an input
It gets quoted as the seller’s position and then rebuilt from the rent roll and the trailing twelve. When your number and theirs differ, you get the bridge line by line rather than a single adjusted total.
Private by default
Your workspace is private to your account. Offering memoranda, rent rolls, term sheets, and your buy box are not used to train models and are not shared with brokers, lenders, or anyone else.
Not an appraiser, a broker, or counsel
River is an underwriting and drafting workspace. Rent regulation, tenant protection, retrofit, and transfer tax rules are local and change often — every regulatory finding is research for local counsel to confirm, never a legal opinion, and no output is an appraisal or investment advice.
Common questions
What does it actually do with an offering memorandum?
It reads the whole document, separates the trailing, in-place, and pro forma NOI the memo blurs together, and recomputes the implied cap rate on each. Then it lists the standard omissions in order of how much they move the number — taxes carried at the seller’s basis, no management fee, no reserves, a legacy insurance policy, one-time income in the other-income line — and reconciles the OM against the rent roll, the T-12, and the public tax record. You get a go or no-go on whether the deal deserves a full underwrite, with the reason.
Does it replace my underwriting model?
It builds one, in a real spreadsheet you own and can edit. If you already have a house model you trust, most teams use this for the work that feeds it — rent roll audits, T-12 normalization, comp surveys, regulatory screening, and the assumption register — and keep their own file for the cash flow. The Source column is the part worth copying either way.
Where do the comps come from?
Live web research against listings, public records, news of recent trades, and whatever you upload from a subscription service you already pay for. Every comp is filed with a confidence level and a date, and asking rent is kept separate from achieved rent because the two are routinely conflated. River will not invent a comp — when the comp set is thin, it says the comp set is thin, which is itself a finding. Verify anything you rely on against its primary source.
How does the regulatory screen work, and can I rely on it?
It researches rent regulation coverage at the specific address and vintage, allowable increases, tenant protection and relocation requirements, retrofit and inspection mandates, and the local transfer tax — then prices each one into the model. It is research, not a legal opinion. These rules are local, change often, and turn on facts about the property that only a title report and counsel can confirm. Every finding is written so you can hand it to a local attorney, and the pack says so on every output.
Will it tell me not to buy something?
Yes, directly. The Bear Case Review exists specifically to argue the deal down, and the IC memo shows every return next to its hurdle with an explicit pass or miss rather than a rounded-up number. Where the deal does not work at ask, it computes the price at which it does. The most useful output this space produces is often a fast no.
What asset types does it handle?
The pack is built around multifamily, where the rent roll and turnover schedule are the core of the analysis, and works well for small and mid-size deals — roughly ten to a hundred units. The T-12 normalization, debt comparison, sensitivity, comp, and IC memo playbooks are asset-agnostic and work on retail, office, and industrial with a different set of inputs. Ground-up development is a different pack.
Can I use it during diligence, or only for screening?
Both. The Diligence Tracker holds your critical dates, findings, and cost impacts, and the Diligence Digest runs every weekday counting days to each date, naming what blocks go-hard, totaling findings against the capex budget, and telling you the deposit at risk today. Diligence periods are short and the item that slips is almost always the one nobody owned.
How is this different from hiring an analyst?
An analyst brings judgment, relationships, and accountability, and this does not replace any of those. What it does is run the mechanical half of the work on demand — at eleven at night when a broker sends a call for offers due Friday, on the deal you would otherwise have skimmed, and to the same standard every time. Teams that use it tend to screen more deals rather than fewer, and kill them faster.
Do I need to pay or sign up to try it?
You need a free account. The link on this page takes you to sign up, then provisions a fully configured workspace you can keep. No paid plan required to start.
Find out what the deal actually pencils at
Drop in an OM and a rent roll, and get the underwriting a committee would run — with every number traced back to the page it came from.
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