What belongs in a Deal Brief

What should go into a Deal Brief?

The offering or investment memo, current sources and uses, every term sheet with its status, the operating or development budget, the rent roll or lease abstracts, the schedule and entitlement status, third-party reports, and the correspondence where terms were actually agreed. Each figure carries a basis label and a date.

Assembling it in order

1. Step 1

   1. Economics

   Sources and uses, budget, model export. These drive every ratio a counterparty computes, so they go in first and get reviewed hardest.

2. Step 2

   2. Capital stack

   Each piece with size, status and the document that evidences it. Senior, mezzanine, preferred, common — and what is signed versus indicative.

3. Step 3

   3. Asset and income

   Rent roll, lease abstracts, T-12, capex history. For development, the construction budget, GMP and its exclusions.

4. Step 4

   4. Schedule and entitlement

   Milestones, permit status, outstanding conditions, and the dates those statuses were true.

5. Step 5

   5. Third-party reports

   Appraisal, environmental, engineering, survey — with dates, because a two-year-old Phase I is a different fact from a current one.

6. Step 6

   6. The correspondence

   The thread where terms were agreed is often the only place a material concession is recorded.

7. Step 7

   7. Review the labels

   Anything the extraction was unsure about goes to the review queue. This is the step that determines whether a credit officer trusts the package.

A worked example

Harbor Point is a fictional deal built to demonstrate a complete Deal Brief.

Fictional. Not a real deal, lender or customer.

What good evidence discipline looks like

• Never present a forecast as a result.
• Never average two conflicting figures — show both with their origin.
• Never let a derived ratio hide its inputs.
• Return an explicit unknown rather than an inference.

Common questions

What should be included in a commercial-real-estate Deal Brief?

Include the offering or investment memo, the current sources and uses, the capital stack with each piece's status, the operating or development budget, the rent roll or lease abstracts, the schedule and entitlement status, key third-party reports, and the email traffic where terms were actually agreed. Label every figure with its basis and date.

What is a Deal Brief?

A Deal Brief is Brieflin's commercial-real-estate Brief. It organizes a deal's economics, capital stack, people, milestones, risks, due diligence, decisions, open items, files, and supporting evidence into one conversational link.A Deal Brief does not replace formal due diligence, a data room, or professional review.

Does a Deal Brief replace due diligence?

No. A Deal Brief helps a counterparty understand a deal quickly and find the documents that matter. Formal diligence — legal review, appraisal, environmental, engineering, underwriting — still happens against the executed documents themselves. Brieflin does not provide any of that advice.A Deal Brief does not replace formal due diligence, a data room, or professional review.