How to Read a Rent Roll for a Utah Commercial Building
Stockton Farnsworth, Utah Associate Broker · Team Utah Commercial, brokered by RE/MAX Associates
October 19, 2026 · 6 min read
If you own a Utah commercial building with tenants, the rent roll is the first document a serious buyer or lender will ask for. It is a one-page summary of who pays you, how much and for how long. Read it the way a buyer will, and you can fix problems before they cost you money at the closing table.
What a rent roll is
A rent roll is a list of every space in the building and the lease on it, as of a specific date. Each row is a suite. Each column is a lease fact: tenant, size, dates, rent and the rest. Vacant suites belong on it too, marked vacant.
It is a snapshot, not a history. It shows rent owed today under signed leases, not what you actually collected last year.
The columns that matter
A good commercial rent roll includes:
- Tenant. The legal name on the lease, not just the sign on the door.
- Suite. The unit number, so every row ties to a real space.
- Square feet. The rentable area used to bill the tenant. Totals should match the building.
- Lease start and end. When the term began and when it expires.
- Base rent. Monthly or yearly rent, plus rent per square foot so you can compare suites.
- Escalations. Scheduled bumps, such as a fixed percentage each year.
- Recoveries (NNN). What the tenant reimburses for operating costs. In a triple net lease, Investopedia explains, the tenant pays rent plus ongoing expenses including property taxes, building insurance and maintenance. Our guide to NNN vs gross leases shows why that changes value.
- Security deposit. The amount held. A buyer will expect deposits to be credited or transferred at closing.
- Options. Renewal, expansion, termination or purchase rights, with notice dates.
- Concessions. Free rent, reduced rent periods or allowances still owed. These belong on the roll, not in a side note.
Example: This rent roll is hypothetical. The tenants, rents and dates are made up to show how to read one. They are not Utah market rents.
| Suite | Tenant | SF | Start | End | Base rent / mo | Rent / SF / yr | Bumps | Type | Deposit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | Coffee shop | 1,500 | 03/2022 | 02/2027 | $3,000 | $24.00 | 3% yearly | NNN | $6,000 | One 5-yr option |
| 102 | Dental office | 2,400 | 06/2021 | 05/2031 | $4,600 | $23.00 | 2.5% yearly | NNN | $9,200 | Two 5-yr options |
| 103 | Insurance agency | 1,200 | 01/2020 | Month-to-month | $1,800 | $18.00 | None | Gross | $1,500 | Term ended 12/2024 |
| 104 | Fitness studio | 3,000 | 01/2025 | 12/2029 | $4,500 | $18.00 | 3% yearly | NNN | $4,500 | 3 months free rent in 2025 |
| 105 | Sign company (owner's affiliate) | 1,800 | 04/2022 | 03/2027 | $2,100 | $14.00 | None | Gross | $0 | Related party |
| 106 | Vacant | 1,100 | ||||||||
| Total | 11,000 | $16,000 | $21,200 | 90% leased by SF |
At a glance, this building collects $16,000 a month, or $192,000 a year in base rent, and is 90% leased. Look closer, and most of the red flags below show up in this one table.
Red flags buyers look for
Leases expiring together. In the example, suites 101 and 105 end one month apart. That is 3,300 square feet, or 30% of the building, rolling over at once. A buyer will price in the chance both move out, plus the cost and downtime to refill them. Renewing early can help.
Month-to-month tenants. Suite 103 can leave on short notice, and the owner has no signed term to sell. Buyers often treat it as close to vacant. A signed renewal, even a short one, is usually worth more.
Below-market rents. Suite 105 pays well under the other suites per square foot, with no bumps and no deposit. A buyer values the rent in place, not what the space could earn someday.
Concessions hidden from the roll. Suite 104 got free rent. That is disclosed here. When concessions, unpaid allowances or side letters are left off, the rent roll overstates income, and the leases or the estoppels will usually expose it. Fannie Mae's multifamily guide, for example, subtracts concessions such as free rent for one or more months when it calculates income.
Related-party tenants. Suite 105 is the owner's own company. Buyers ask whether that tenant will stay and keep paying after the sale, and whether its rent and terms were set at arm's length. Expect a discount or a request for a new market-rate lease.
How the rent roll ties to the leases
The rent roll is only a summary. The signed lease, with every amendment, is what controls. A careful buyer or lender reads the leases and checks each line: names, square feet, dates, rent, bumps, recoveries, deposits and options.
Lenders do this as standard practice. Fannie Mae's multifamily guide requires its lenders to complete a thorough lease audit to reconcile the rent roll with the property's signed leases, and to review more leases if they find material discrepancies.
Before you go to market, do it yourself. Pull every lease and amendment and fix what does not match. A mistake you find first is a correction. A mistake the buyer finds is a price cut.
The T-12 and estoppel certificates
Two more documents test the rent roll from different angles.
The T-12. This is the trailing 12 months operating statement: actual income and expenses for the most recent 12-month period. The rent roll says what tenants owe. The T-12 shows what was actually collected and spent. If the rent roll shows $16,000 a month but the T-12 shows much less, a buyer will ask about vacancy, late payers or concessions.
Estoppel certificates. An estoppel is a short statement, usually prepared by the landlord and signed by the tenant, that confirms the lease facts to a buyer or lender. Per Investopedia, it is often required when an owner sells a tenanted property or refinances, and it commonly covers the lease start and end dates, the last rent payment, any defaults and whether the lease has been changed. Many commercial leases require tenants to sign one on request within a set number of days, so read yours for the deadline. An estoppel that disagrees with your rent roll is a problem you want to know about early.
Why buyers and lenders lean on it
Value starts with net operating income. Investopedia defines NOI as all revenue from the property minus necessary operating expenses, before loan payments, capital expenditures, depreciation and amortization. The rent roll is where the revenue side of that number starts.
Buyers use NOI to price the building through the cap rate. Our guide on how to calculate cap rate walks through the math. Lenders use NOI to size the loan: the debt-service coverage ratio divides NOI by the yearly principal and interest. A weak or unreliable rent roll shrinks both the price and the loan.
Try your own rent and expense numbers in the NOI worksheet in our cap rate calculator.
Get a real number on your building
This article is general education, not legal, tax or investment advice. Your leases control, so have your attorney review them before a sale or refinance. Your rent roll is the starting point for what a buyer will pay. For a broker opinion of value (no charge and no obligation; we're paid only if you later hire us to sell or lease), call or text 801-664-3370. It is not an appraisal. It is a licensed broker's view of likely price, based on your income, leases and the current market.
Stockton Farnsworth, Utah Associate Broker, Team Utah Commercial, brokered by RE/MAX Associates.
General education only, not legal, tax, investment or appraisal advice. Information is believed reliable but not guaranteed. This article was drafted with the help of AI from the sources listed. Published by Stockton Farnsworth, Utah Associate Broker, Team Utah Commercial, brokered by RE/MAX Associates.
