A rent roll is a tenant-by-tenant summary of a property's in-place leases and contractual income at a point in time. It lists each tenant, suite, leased square footage, lease start and end dates, current rent, escalations, and security deposits. It is the primary source document for a property's income stream.
What Is Included in a Rent Roll?
A rent roll includes one row per lease with the tenant name, suite or unit number, leased square footage, lease start and expiration dates, current monthly and annual rent, contractual escalations, and security deposit held. Commercial rent rolls add reimbursements such as CAM, tax, and insurance recoveries. It is a snapshot of contractual income, not collected income.
The rent roll is the backbone of both underwriting and asset management. Per PRODA and Adventures in CRE, it is where a property's rental income is documented lease by lease, feeding the pro forma at acquisition and tracking performance after close. Each month the rent roll is updated to reflect new leases, move-outs, escalations, and deposit changes, so it doubles as a running record of occupancy and lease rollover.
Field | What it captures |
Tenant and suite | Who occupies which unit |
Leased square footage | Rentable area under the lease |
Lease start and end | Commencement and expiration dates for rollover planning |
Current rent | Monthly and annualized contractual rent |
Escalations | Scheduled rent bumps built into the lease |
Reimbursements | CAM, tax, and insurance recoveries (commercial) |
Security deposit | Cash or letter of credit held |
Why the Rent Roll Matters
The rent roll matters because it is the source of truth for a property's income, and every valuation runs off it. A single misstated lease expiration or overstated rent flows straight into net operating income and, at a market cap rate, into a large swing in value. An error there is a pricing error, not a rounding issue.
This is why lease audits are treated as an essential component of acquisition due diligence. Per REA and Lextract, rent roll auditing cross-checks every lease, payment record, and tenant detail against the source documents before a deal closes, catching errors that inflate valuations and expose undisclosed vacancy. A platform-generated rent roll only reflects what was entered, so software output is a starting point, not a substitute for document-level verification.
Example
A small retail center lists four tenants. Suite 100 pays $4,000 per month, Suite 200 pays $6,500, Suite 300 pays $3,200, and Suite 400 is vacant. Annualized in-place rent is ($4,000 + $6,500 + $3,200) x 12, which equals $164,400. The vacant suite carries a $2,800 monthly market rent, so full potential is $198,000 and the physical vacancy is one of four suites.
Suite | Tenant | Sq ft | Monthly rent | Lease expiration | Annual rent |
100 | Cafe | 1,500 | $4,000 | 2028-03-31 | $48,000 |
200 | Clinic | 2,400 | $6,500 | 2031-06-30 | $78,000 |
300 | Salon | 1,100 | $3,200 | 2027-09-30 | $38,400 |
400 | Vacant | 1,000 | $0 | n/a | $0 |
Total | 6,000 | $13,700 | $164,400 |
Now suppose an audit finds the Clinic exercised a renewal that reset its expiration to 2031, but the seller's rent roll still showed a 2026 expiration and had understated the escalated rent by $500 per month. Correcting one lease adds $6,000 of annual income and removes a phantom rollover. At a 6.5% cap rate, that single correction moves value by roughly $92,000.
Variations and Edge Cases
Rent rolls vary by asset type and by how income is stated, and the differences change how the numbers should be read. The table below covers the variants an analyst should separate before trusting a total.
Variant | Treatment |
Contractual vs collected | The rent roll shows contractual rent; a delinquency report shows what was actually collected |
Gross vs net leases | Net leases push expenses to tenants via reimbursements that must be read alongside base rent |
In-place vs market rent | Below-market leases create loss to lease that the rent roll does not flag on its own |
Free rent and concessions | Current rent may overstate income if a free-rent period is still running |
Renewal options exercised | Expiration dates are commonly misstated when a renewal has already been exercised |
Rent Roll vs T-12
A rent roll is often confused with a T-12, and they answer different questions. A rent roll is a point-in-time snapshot of contractual leases and the income they are scheduled to produce. A T-12 is a trailing-twelve-month operating statement of income and expenses the property actually recorded. One is contract data, the other is performance.
Underwriters read them together. The rent roll shows what tenants are obligated to pay; the T-12 shows what the property actually earned and spent, including collections, vacancy, and expense reality the rent roll cannot capture.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a rent roll and a T-12?A rent roll is a point-in-time snapshot of the current leases and contractual rent, while a T-12 is a trailing-twelve-month statement of actual income and expenses. The rent roll shows what tenants owe; the T-12 shows what the property actually collected and spent.
How do you verify a rent roll?Verify a rent roll by cross-checking each line against the underlying leases and amendments, then reconciling stated rent to the tenant ledgers and bank deposits. Common errors include misstated expiration dates, overstated rent, and square footage that does not match the executed amendments.
Why is the rent roll important in a commercial real estate deal?The rent roll is the primary source of a property's income, so it drives the net operating income and valuation. An overstated rent or a missed vacancy flows directly into price, which is why lease audits treat the rent roll as a document to verify, not accept.
Related Terms
Net Operating Income
Pro Forma
Loss to Lease
Effective Gross Income
Lease Abstraction