Build the pro-forma skeleton without inventing a number
Rung 4 of 10 · Constraints + negative instructions
1 · Learn the move · Constraints + negative instructions
A development pro-forma is only as honest as its inputs, and the temptation is to let the AI 'fill in reasonable numbers'. That's how a feasibility study becomes fiction. The move is constraints plus hard negatives: the AI builds the STRUCTURE, sources & uses, hard and soft costs, contingency, financing, absorption, the yield-on-cost line. But every number is a [YOUR NUMBER] slot fed from your budget and market study, never a value the model supplies. The negatives are absolute: never invent a cost, an absorption pace, a rent, or an exit cap. And the return itself, yield-on-cost, IRR. Is compound math the AI cannot do reliably in the chat, so it sets up the formula and hands off to your model, tagging the result rather than producing a number. Assumptions get labeled. This is a framework, not investment advice.
Build me a development pro-forma for a 120-unit apartment project and tell me if it pencils.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
You're underwriting a ground-up 120-unit multifamily project. You'll supply land cost, hard-cost per SF, the unit mix, and rents from your own budget and market study. But you want the sources-and-uses and return framework built now, before you have every figure, so you can drop numbers in. Write a prompt that builds the skeleton and the yield-on-cost setup WITHOUT the AI inventing any cost, rent, or absorption pace, and WITHOUT it computing the yield itself.
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.