How should I prepare the T-12 and rent roll for a CRE loan submission?

What lenders scrutinize

T-12 normalizations: lenders normalize the trailing twelve to a stabilized run-rate. Pre-normalization removes one-time items (insurance settlements, prior-year tax refunds, owner-paid items, lease-up concessions) and reflects market-rate items (market real-estate-tax basis post-acquisition, market insurance, market property management). Showing the normalization on the borrower side avoids the lender doing it less favorably.

Rent-roll currency: institutional lenders want a rent roll dated within 30 days of submission. Older rent rolls trigger a re-pull and slow the process. On larger properties, the rent roll should be a property-management system export rather than a manual spreadsheet, because system exports are auditable to the underlying lease data.

Rent-roll completeness: every unit on every floor, including vacant units, model units, manager units, and down units. Lenders that find missing units assume the worst. Show in-place rent, market rent (sourced from a comp set), lease start, lease end, security deposit, and any concessions or rent-relief packages.

Tie-out to the T-12: monthly rent collections on the T-12 should match the in-place gross rent on the rent roll within reasonable variance (collections vs. potential, factoring vacancy and bad debt). Discrepancies should be explained on the cover page of the package.

Commercial properties: include the lease abstract for every tenant, square footage, base rent, escalations, expense reimbursements (NNN, modified gross), TI/LC remaining, options to renew or terminate.