Audit an answer before it reaches the memo
Lesson 2 of 5 · The deal week
By the end you can take any AI draft about a property, list every figure and fact in it, and mark each with the source cell that backs it or the word UNKNOWN.
1 · Learn the move · Fact-check list
On this desk, 'invented' wears a suit. A cap rate called 'typical for the submarket'. Rent growth at three percent because that is what models say. A comp at a plausible price per square foot on a building nobody checked. A tenant 'in place since 2014' when the lease says 2019. A NOI that is the model's arithmetic on the model's own assumptions. Every one reads like underwriting. The audit is a list, not an instinct. Pull every number and every factual claim out of the draft, one per line, and next to each write the source cell: the rent roll row, the T-12 line, the estoppel, the comp set, the lease page. A figure with no source gets UNKNOWN, and nothing with an UNKNOWN in it reaches a memo, an investor or a lender. The model can build the list. It cannot supply a single source. Draft copy, not advice of any kind. Reviewed by: nobody yet.
Here is a draft deal summary: [paste]. List every figure and factual claim in it, one per line: rents, expenses, NOI, cap rate, growth, comps, lease dates, tenant names, square footage. Next to each, write the source that would prove it (rent roll / T-12 / estoppel / lease / comp set / survey / other). Do not tell me whether the figure is right; you cannot know. Star any figure that is a product of other figures. End with the count and the sources I need to open.
What invented means on this door
Invented, in this door, means a number with no cell to point at: a comp that was never pulled, a tenant or a letter of intent nobody received, a rent, cap rate or IRR with no stated assumption, a closed deal that is still under contract, or valuation language that reads as an appraisal. Every figure in the memo traces to a rent roll, a lease, a closing statement or a named source, or it is marked UNKNOWN and stays out of the sent draft.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
The draft summary for the Elm Plaza memo came back clean: 'NOI of $412,000 on a 6.5% cap, consistent with the submarket, anchor tenant in place since 2014, rent growth of 3% assumed'. You supplied the address and a two-line description. The memo goes to the investment committee at 9 am.
Write the prompt for this scenario as given, or swap in a real one from your own work. The score works the same either way.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.