4 h → 20 min
An appraisal, start to verdict
Drop the PDF, confirm the price against the comps, read the scorecard. The hours were never the judgement; they were the copying.
Underwriting for property developers, and the investors behind them
Underwrite a property deal, end to end. From the architect's PDF to the investor's answer.
Averu does every mechanical step and leaves every judgement to you. Two machine phases, one human decision between.
The problem
An analyst studies close to two hundred buildings in a year to buy five.
Each one is four or five hours in Excel, then a deck. The judgement that decides the deal is real, but it is buried under hours of copying a PDF into cells, placing sixty-odd cash-flow formulas by hand, and rebuilding the same tables for the fifth time.
It lives in one file.
The whole method sits in a workbook only its author fully understands. When they are away, the work waits in an inbox.
It breaks quietly.
One wrong cell reference and the cash flow is off, with nothing on screen to tell you.
There is no referee.
Nothing checks the file against what the bank actually paid. A mismatch should be a signal, not a surprise.
What changes for your firm
More buildings underwritten, the right ones bought, the money raised faster.
The method stays yours. What goes is the mechanical week between a PDF in your inbox and a number you would sign: the retyping, the formula placing, the rebuilt tables, the deck. Here is what that is worth, in the numbers a developer's analyst gave us.
×3
Buildings you can look at
The same analyst, the same week, three times the deals underwritten. You stop saying no to a look because there is no time for a look.
5 of 200
The right five
With a price solved for your target and a stress test on every deal, the five you buy are the five that clear the bar, and the ones you drop, you drop early.
1 link
From deck to signed interest
Publish once. Each investor gets a private link, a teaser, the full plan behind their signature, and a button to say yes. Your funded bar fills while you are on the next deal.
1 place
Deal, raise and build
The plan that won the deal is the plan the project is managed on: invoices, drawdowns, plan against actual. One set of numbers from the first look to the last flat sold.
Illustrative, from a pilot developer's own description of the work: close to two hundred buildings a year to buy five, four to five hours each in a spreadsheet, then a deck.
The method
Two machine phases, one human decision between.
The same underwriting you already do: read, decide, appraise, raise. With every mechanical step done for you and every judgement still yours.
01
It reads the building.
Drop the architect's PDF. It reads every unit in the background, cites where each number came from, and flags anything it is not sure of. It flags, it never guesses. The hour you used to spend retyping is done before you look.
02
You make the one call.
The price. Capture real comparable listings straight off the portal, the numbers, never the photos, and the quartiles build themselves, so your price per square metre stands on evidence. Every buried assumption becomes one labelled dial, stamped with its source.
03
It appraises the deal.
The monthly cash flow builds itself from plain-language patterns instead of sixty-three hand-placed formulas. The scorecard solves for price, shows how wrong you can be and still be fine, and lays the return before and after the bank side by side.
04
You raise against it.
Publish the view you choose: a teaser with the returns and the ask, or the full plan behind a signed undertaking. Each investor gets a private link, a funded bar shows soft interest and verified commitments, and when you win, the plan freezes into a managed project.
05
You build it.
Win, and the plan freezes into the project. Invoices are read and booked to the right chapter and month, the cash flow shows plan against actual, the bank's drawdown is computed by its own rule, and the investors follow the build on the same numbers they signed for.
The number the deal turns on
It all comes down to one line.
Not the project's headline profit, but what the person writing the cheque puts in, gets back, and keeps. Spelled out, and auditable to the last line of the P&L.
You put in€4.5Mequity
You get back€7.4Mafter the bank is repaid
You keep€2.9M1.6× your money
€5.0M
Drag the price. Watch every number answer, and watch the return cross your 20% target.
The seller asks €5.2M. Above €5.7M the deal stops clearing 20%.
Two things that happen on every site. Switch them on.
Return (IRR)26.8%Clears a 20% target return
What just moved, line by lineAgainst the negotiated case
- Transfer taxes (IMT + stamp)unchanged
- Renovation worksunchanged
- Equity you put inunchanged
- Bank facilityunchanged
- Bank interestunchanged
- Holdunchanged
- Profit you keepunchanged
- Return (IRR)unchanged
Illustrative figures from an example deal. On the platform, move the acquisition price and every one of these rewrites itself.
The stress test
How wrong can you be, and still be fine?
Take the two risks that worry you, build cost against sale price, and read the return if both move against you at once. Green clears your 20% target, gold is the line, red is a deal you walked away from before you bought it.
Hover a cell to read that scenario.
Build cost
+10%
+5%
0%
-5%
-10%
-10%
-5%
0%
+5%
+10%
Sale price
Return (IRR) when build cost and sale price move together; target 20%. Illustrative, on the same building as the live demo.
For the investor
You see the plan the developer actually runs on. Not a deck made for you.
Every figure an investor receives on Averu is the developer's own working model, frozen at the moment they shared it, computed to the cent and checked against itself. No separate spreadsheet was made to look good.
01
What you receive.
First a teaser: returns, hold, the raise, the unit mix, the market context. Then, if you want more, the full plan: revenue, costs, capital structure, the monthly cash flow, the timeline.
02
What you sign.
A confidentiality and non-circumvention undertaking, online, with your name. It protects the developer's work on a building they do not yet own. It is recorded, versioned and never changes after you sign it.
03
What stays yours.
Your link is yours alone: your name, your signature, your answer, kept between you and the developer. A private network of hand-picked investors today; a curated marketplace, where vetted investors browse vetted deals, is on the roadmap.
Where it goes
- TodayA private network: one developer to the investors they choose., then
- NextA curated marketplace across developers, vetted on both sides., then
- ThenYour whole portfolio, with construction updates and distributions in one place.
Interest is soft and non-binding until you and the developer sign terms together. Averu keeps the record of every step.
See it on your own deal.
Bring a live one. We build it from the architect's PDF in front of you, to a number you could take to an investor.
Book a demoSee what an investor receives.
Open the live example on your phone: the teaser, the undertaking, the full plan. Then ask for one in your name.
Open the live exampleWhat you get
Everything between the architect's PDF and the last flat sold.
Built with a Portuguese developer, deal by deal, for how the work actually runs.
Read
- The architect's PDF, read and cited
Every unit, floor, typology and area, each with the page and line it came from. It flags what it is unsure of.
- New versions, diffed
A revised drawing lands as a new version; you accept each change or keep yours.
- Start by hand when there is no PDF
Type the units in and everything else works the same.
Price
- Comparables from real listings
Capture listings off the portal with one click, quartiles build themselves, INE medians as context.
- Your assumptions, once
Taxes, fees, timing and bank terms as named dials with their source; set them as firm policy and every deal inherits them.
- Live EURIBOR by tenor
3, 6 or 12 months, refreshed daily from the ECB.
Appraise
- The cash flow builds itself
Monthly, from plain-language payment patterns; override any month by clicking it.
- P&L in three VAT columns, bank ratios
Excl. VAT, VAT, incl. VAT; LTV and LTC the way the bank reads them.
- Solve for price, stress test, delay
The most you can pay for your target return, a heatmap of the two risks that worry you, a construction slip in one click.
- Saved scenarios
Freeze a what-if, compare, return to the live deal with one click.
- Demolition, creditor and debtor days
An existing building to bring down, and cash that lands later than the invoice.
Raise
- Teaser and full plan
Two tiers per investor link; the full plan opens behind a signed confidentiality and non-circumvention undertaking.
- A private link, a QR code, a yes
One tap on their phone to register interest; verified commitments land in your cap table.
- Investor deck, generated
The pages an investor expects, from the same numbers.
Build
- Invoices read and booked
Two VAT rates, evidence attached, into the right chapter and month.
- Plan against actual
The frozen plan next to what was booked, every month.
- Drawdowns by the bank's own rule
Each lender's formula configured once, entitlement computed per certificate.
- History of every change
Who changed what, when, on every deal and project.
Built for the ground it stands on
Underwriting that speaks Portugal, natively.
Gross area the way the drawing states it, the compulsory inspection, and every tax that touches a development, computed by the rules that actually apply, not bolted on afterwards.
Investors outside Portugal buy euro exposure in a market they cannot underwrite from where they sit. Averu does that underwriting the Portuguese way: IMT and stamp duty, the rehabilitation VAT rate, the bank's drawdown rules, the corporate tax bands. The developer works in it every day; you read the result.
- Área bruta
- Fiscalização
- IMT
- IMI
- VAT / ARU
- CIT & derrama
The proof
When you show an investor a number, it's right.
Every number is exact to the cent, and they all agree with each other, so there is no silent spreadsheet error waiting to surface in front of an investor.
✓ correct to the centrevenue, VAT, cash flow and returns all agree
Who it's for
Built around the person who does the work.
For the analyst
It keeps you inside the platform, not in Excel.
You get a draft, not a finished table. Every mechanical step done, every source cited, every judgement left blank. You still read the drawing to check and decide. It never retypes your conclusion for you, and it never calls your file wrong.
For the owner
The method stops living in one person's head.
It lives in the platform, so a second analyst is productive in weeks, and the work does not stop when your best one is away. The same discipline, every deal, and a curated way to raise the money behind it.
For the investor
The same numbers the developer stakes their own money on.
You are not reading a pitch. You are reading the underwriting, with the workings behind every line, in a market the platform speaks natively. When it says 26%, that is the model, not the marketing.
Questions
The things worth asking.
- What does it do for my analyst?
- It gives them their hours back. Reading the drawing into a unit table, placing the sixty cash-flow formulas, rebuilding the same tables for the fifth time: done and cited before they look. They spend the day on the calls that decide a deal, the price, the risk, the investor. One analyst underwrites more buildings and buys the right five.
- Who sees my numbers?
- You decide, line by line. Your workings stay yours. When you raise, you choose the tier: a teaser with the returns and the ask, or the full plan behind a signed confidentiality undertaking. Every share is one named investor, one private link, recorded.
- How do I get started?
- Drop the architect's PDF. It reads every unit in the background and flags anything it is unsure of. You set your assumptions once, and they carry to every deal after. Your first appraisal is ready the same afternoon.
- Where does it work?
- Portugal, natively: gross area from the drawing, the compulsory inspection, IMT, IMI, VAT / ARU and CIT computed by the rules that apply. Spain is next, and the jurisdiction pack is built to travel; tell us where you build and we add it.
- What does it cost?
- A fraction of one wrong deal. Pricing follows your firm and how you work; we walk you through it on the call, with no obligation.
- How do I get deals?
- Developers invite you: a private link per deal, in your name, with the teaser and, behind your signature, the full plan. That is the private network live today. A curated marketplace, where vetted investors browse vetted deals across developers, is on the roadmap; ask us to be on the list.
- Why should I trust the numbers?
- Because they are the developer's own working model, not a document prepared for investors. The platform computes every figure from the inputs, checks revenue, VAT, cash flow and returns against each other, and shows its workings. Returns are projections, labelled as such.
- What do I sign, and where?
- A confidentiality and non-circumvention undertaking, online, before the full plan opens. A simple electronic signature: your typed name, a checkbox, the time, and the exact text you accepted, kept by the developer.
Book a demo
See it on a live deal.
We will build a deal from nothing in front of you. Drop a PDF, capture the comps, and watch the numbers fall into place, to the answer an investor can sign. About twenty minutes.
Propose three times that suit you. We confirm one by email, no calendar account, no back-and-forth.
Would rather just send an email? Get in touch here.