The sponsor track record section on this deal page is one sentence

I assumed the platform had already checked all that and the page was a summary of a longer file they hold. Are you saying they might not have the realized numbers themselves?

Platforms vary a lot in how much they verify, rigging, and their diligence is not a substitute for yours. What to ask for, in the words that tend to get an answer:

A full realized track record, meaning every deal the sponsor has taken from purchase to sale, with the hold period and the actual realized return to investors, including the ones that lost money or returned less than projected. Forty projects with three case studies means 37 you haven't seen. If the answer is that most are still open, that's useful too, because a sponsor with a long list and few exits hasn't yet been tested by a sale.

The sponsor's role in the prior deals. "Transacted" is a loose word. It can mean they were the general partner making decisions, or that they co-invested, or that a principal worked on it at a previous firm. Ask which.

Whether the sponsor has ever missed a distribution, called capital after the initial raise, or handed a property back to a lender. A straight answer to that question tells you more than any case study. An evasive answer also tells you something.

The piece people skip is asking to speak to investors from a completed deal. Some sponsors will connect you, and hearing how communication went during a bad quarter is worth more than the projections. And if the offering page and the actual offering documents describe the fee structure differently, the documents govern, so read them before you decide anything.

My filter is the exits, not the total. Forty projects and six full cycle means I'm looking at a firm that has grown faster than it has proven anything. I also check whether the principals were operating through a downturn or only through a rising market, since a sponsor whose whole history is one direction of cap rates has a track record of being in the right place.

Orchard, ask for the last two deals' original projected IRR next to the realized IRR. That single comparison ends more conversations than anything else I do.

The three-winners PDF is standard marketing behavior and I don't read much into it beyond laziness. What I'd read into is the email answer. You asked a direct question and got a brochure back, which is a preview of what your investor updates will look like in year three when something's gone sideways.

A lot of sponsors genuinely can't produce a clean realized track record because the entities are messy and nobody kept a consolidated schedule. That isn't fraud, it's disorganization, and it still tells you how they'll handle your K-1. When I've raised from friends I got asked for exactly this and it took me a weekend to build. A firm at $400M with no such document has chosen not to have one.

Ask who's building it too. If the sponsor self-performs construction, that's a related-party contract and the margin in it comes out of your return.