Deal definition and authority
- Write the investment thesis, hold period, return target, and exit cases
- Identify the purchasing entity and confirm signing authority
- Document financing, equity, reserve, and renovation-capital limits
- List every contingency, deadline, deposit, extension right, and approval
- Create one exception log with an owner and due date for each unresolved item
Ownership, contract, and recorded documents
- Match the seller and contract party to the deeded owner
- Save the deed, legal description, parcel SBL, and title commitment
- Review mortgages, liens, judgments, easements, restrictions, assignments, and satisfactions with qualified counsel
- Confirm survey needs, boundary issues, shared drives, access, and encroachments
- Document prorations, transfer taxes, deposits, credits, and required closing deliverables
Municipal identity and legal use
- Confirm municipality, school district, village, parcel class, and mailing address
- Reconcile advertised units, bedrooms, occupancy, and use to municipal records
- Save zoning district, permitted-use evidence, variance or approval records, and any planned-use confirmation
- Verify current Certificate of Occupancy status, unit count, expiration, and inspection items
- Obtain open permit, code violation, and property-maintenance records
- Confirm parking, mixed-use, rooming, short-term-rental, and conversion assumptions separately
Taxes, assessments, water, and municipal charges
- Save current and prior City, town, county, village, and school tax bills as applicable
- Verify payment status, penalties, installments, re-levies, tax agreements, and closing adjustments
- Reconcile assessed and taxable assessed values, tax class, and exemptions
- Identify seller exemptions that may not survive transfer
- Save water bills, meter history, refuse, frontage, Pure Waters, special-district, and add-to-tax charges
- Model current, normalized post-sale, and reassessment or renovation stress cases
Leases, tenants, and income
- Save every lease, amendment, renewal, notice, concession, and assistance document
- Build a unit-by-unit rent schedule tied to the leases and ledger
- Reconcile deposits, prepaid rent, arrears, payment plans, and owner obligations
- Verify occupancy in person and investigate occupied units without a current lease
- Separate current contract rent, collected rent, supportable market rent, and projected post-renovation rent
- Review pending applications, promised units, notices, disputes, accommodations, and litigation with counsel
- Determine property-specific Good Cause Eviction coverage and any claimed exemption
Operating expenses and management records
- Collect trailing utility, insurance, repair, maintenance, landscaping, snow, refuse, management, leasing, legal, licensing, and administrative costs
- Tie owner-paid utilities to meters and lease responsibility
- Review work orders, recurring complaints, inspections, vendor contracts, warranties, and service plans
- Separate ordinary operating expense from capital replacement and owner-specific spending
- Normalize only with an explicit reason and supporting source
- Build as-is, stabilized, downside, and break-even views without hiding missing expenses
Physical condition and capital scope
- Inspect roof, drainage, foundation, structure, masonry, porches, stairs, windows, and exterior envelope
- Inspect electrical service and panels, supply and waste plumbing, sewer, heating, hot water, ventilation, and fire separation
- Inspect every unit and common area; document access limitations
- Identify moisture, mold, pests, asbestos-suspect materials, underground tanks, and other specialist needs
- Obtain contractor pricing tied to a written quantity-based scope
- Separate life-safety, occupancy, make-ready, deferred maintenance, durability, and elective work
- Include permits, design, disposal, tenant phasing, carrying cost, contingency, and financing draw timing
Lead, environmental, and flood screening
- Confirm year built and collect federal lead disclosures for covered pre-1978 housing
- Determine Rochester lead inspection and certification requirements for the specific property
- Plan covered renovation work through an EPA-certified RRP firm
- Screen NYSDEC spill, remediation, and bulk-storage records and resolve matches
- Check the effective FEMA flood map and obtain lender/insurance determinations
- Order appropriate environmental, lead, asbestos, or engineering assessments when the screen or use warrants them
Insurance and financing
- Disclose actual use, legal units, occupancy, vacancy, renovation, mixed use, and prior losses to the insurer
- Obtain bindable property, liability, loss-of-rents, flood, builder’s-risk, and other required coverage
- Reconcile lender appraisal and underwriting assumptions to the acquisition case
- Confirm loan amount, rate, term, amortization, recourse, reserves, escrows, covenants, prepayment, and draw controls
- Stress interest, taxes, insurance, vacancy, construction duration, and refinance proceeds
- Confirm entity, deed, policy, loan, management, and operating-account names agree
Closing and operational handoff
- Complete final walk-through and recheck occupancy, damage, removals, utilities, and agreed repairs
- Receive leases, ledgers, deposits, keys, access codes, applications, notices, work orders, vendor contacts, warranties, and plans
- Transfer utilities, insurance, tax mailing, management authority, emergency contacts, and payment instructions
- File or update the Rochester Building Owners Registry when applicable
- Calendar C of O, lead, permit, lease, insurance, loan, tax, and inspection deadlines
- Complete a post-closing record audit and resolve every surviving exception
Final investment decision
This checklist is educational and intentionally broader than any single transaction. It does not replace the contract, attorney, title company, lender, insurer, inspector, environmental professional, engineer, accountant, or municipality. Laws and records change; sources were reviewed September 9, 2026.
- State the verified purchase price, closing cost, immediate capital, reserve, and total basis
- State current and stabilized NOI with every recurring expense included
- Keep capital costs and debt service separate from property-level NOI
- Show downside case, break-even occupancy, debt coverage, cash flow, and exit sensitivity
- List every fact still supplied only by the seller, broker, owner, or an assumption
- Record the final approve, renegotiate, extend, or terminate decision and who authorized it