Writing the investor one pager before finding the deal is a useful discipline

An operator without capital to raise and without a deal in hand can still benefit from writing the page they would send an investor if they found something. Purchase price, rehab, rents, the loan, what each person puts in, what each person gets back and when. Made up numbers on a made up building work fine as long as the building shape and market are specific and real, an older four unit in a market actually driven regularly. Showing that page to someone with no real estate background often surfaces the real gap fast. The obvious question is what happens if the unit doesn't rent for the number written down, and a page without an answer to that question isn't finished. Adding two lines closes the gap: what the numbers look like at rents 10% under, and how many months of payments the reserve covers. Once those two lines exist, a lot of deals on a shortlist stop clearing, and the ones that survive tend to be cheaper and more boring than what was originally being chased. That page works well as a standing filter. If it can't be filled in honestly for a given deal, that deal isn't the one.