SimplySolvd

What documents do I need to sell my property?

Two documents do most of the work: a current rent roll and a trailing-12-month income and expense statement. With those, a buyer can give you a firm, defensible number. Without them, any figure is an estimate — and estimates get discounted.

The two that matter most

1. A current rent roll

Who is renting what, and on what terms. For each unit or space, a useful rent roll shows:

2. A trailing-12-month statement (T12)

What the building actually collected and spent over the last twelve months — not a projection, and not a pro forma. Income on one side; property taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, management, and marketing on the other. The difference is net operating income, and NOI is what a buyer divides by a cap rate to reach a price.

Why these two decide your price

Commercial property is valued on income. The rent roll proves what is coming in today, and the T12 proves what it costs to keep it coming in. Everything else in a diligence file is a check on those two numbers.

Helpful, but not blocking

If your records are incomplete

This is normal, especially for owners who self-manage or who inherited a building. A workable T12 can usually be rebuilt from tax returns and bank statements, and a rent roll can be reconstructed from leases and deposit records. The point is not perfect bookkeeping — it is giving a buyer something verifiable, because unverifiable income gets discounted.

What happens once you have them

A direct buyer can typically move from documents to a real number quickly, and explain the math behind it. You are free to decline — but you will at least know what the building is worth to someone buying it for its income, which is more than most owners ever find out.

Have your rent roll and T12? Get a private number on the property.

Tell us about the property and we'll follow up discreetly. No public listing, no commissions, no pressure — or text us at 202-932-7527.

Prefer the full overview first? Visit invest.simplysolvd.com

Frequently asked questions

What is a rent roll?
A snapshot of who is renting what, right now. For each unit or space it lists the tenant, the rent, when the lease started and ends, the security deposit held, and whether the tenant is current on payments. It tells a buyer what income the building is actually producing today.
What is a T12?
The trailing-12-month income and expense statement — what the property genuinely collected and spent over the last twelve months. It is the single most important document in a commercial sale, because it is what net operating income is calculated from, and NOI is what the price is calculated from.
What if my records are a mess or I don't have a T12?
That is common with owner-managed buildings and it is workable. A T12 can usually be reconstructed from tax returns, bank statements, and whatever bookkeeping exists. The practical consequence of thin records is not that you cannot sell — it is that buyers discount what they cannot verify, so cleaner records generally produce a better number.
Do I need an appraisal before selling?
Not to get an offer from a direct buyer, who will run their own numbers off your rent roll and T12. An appraisal becomes important in specific situations — settling an estate, establishing basis on inherited property, or a lender requiring one — rather than as a routine first step.
Should I share my rent roll with a buyer I just met?
Use judgment. A rent roll can be shared with tenant names redacted, which gives a buyer everything they need to value the property while keeping personal information private. Full unredacted documents normally come later, once a buyer has shown they are serious.
How long does it take to pull all this together?
If you have a property manager or a bookkeeper, often a few days. If you self-manage and records are scattered, budget a couple of weeks. It is usually worth doing before you start talking to buyers, because it turns a range into a firm number.