Companion file

How to Read a Real Estate Loan Agreement

Covenants, Cash Traps, Recourse and Missed Tests

One Excel workbook, and no added inputs at all — every number in it comes from the book. Chapter 11 finds that one cure costs 11.2 times the other and says the ratio is not specific to the deal. It is half right, and the half that is wrong is the half a borrower negotiates. It is free. Nothing is gated behind a sign-up, and no email address is asked for.

The workbook

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What to try first

Go to sheet 3 and change the amortisation column. Then go to sheet 4 and change the debt yield covenant. Those two cells are the whole negotiation: between them they set both the value of the cheap cure and the range of income decline over which it exists at all. Then replace the loan, the rate and the income on sheet 1 with your own — everything re-solves, including the closed form.

What the arithmetic does not settle

It cannot tell you what your agreement actually says, and that is the book’s point rather than a limitation of the file. Whether a deposit is held and returned or applied to principal, whether consecutive cures are permitted, whether a cure of coverage also cures debt yield, and whether a cure prevents the trap or merely reverses it — those are five drafting questions and the workbook assumes the borrower-favourable answer to each. Where your document differs, the numbers here are the ceiling rather than the outcome.

Conventions used throughout

Amber fillan input — you may edit these
Grey filla formula — do not overtype these
ADDEDnothing. Every input in this workbook is a figure the book states
Checks sheetthirty-eight controls — twenty reproduce the book before anything is questioned

The building, the loan and the covenants are the book’s own and fictional, as they are in the book. This is not legal advice, and no workbook substitutes for reading the agreement.

Opening the file

The workbook opens in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. It uses no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet asks to update links on opening, decline — there are none.

Also by Julian R. Sterling

The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the author page.

These files accompany How to Read a Real Estate Loan Agreement. The book is on Amazon.

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