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AI Underwriting for CRE

AI underwriting in commercial real estate uses artificial intelligence to automate the financial modeling, sensitivity analysis, and return projections that inform investment and development decisions. AI underwriting systems can produce institutional-grade financial models in minutes — incorporating market data, comparable transactions, construction cost estimates, and financing assumptions.

How AI underwriting works

AI underwriting systems ingest deal parameters (property type, location, size, intended use), pull relevant market data (rent comps, cap rates, construction costs, vacancy rates), and build multi-scenario financial models. They run sensitivity analysis across key variables — construction costs, lease-up timeline, exit cap rate, interest rates — and produce outputs in formats familiar to institutional investors.

Speed advantage

Traditional underwriting requires an analyst to manually build or adapt a financial model, source comparable data, and run scenarios. This typically takes 2-5 days per deal. AI underwriting produces the same output in minutes, allowing teams to screen more opportunities and iterate on deal structures faster. When market conditions shift, models can be rerun instantly with updated assumptions.

Integration with due diligence

The real power of AI underwriting emerges when it's integrated with AI due diligence workflows. Site-specific data discovered during due diligence — environmental remediation costs, zoning-driven density limits, infrastructure costs — feeds directly into the financial model, creating a live connection between physical analysis and financial returns.