How do I compare two rent rolls to see what changed between them?

What is Lease Trade Out?

Lease Trade Out lets you compare two rent rolls from different points in time to understand what changed between them -- who renewed their lease, who vacated, and who moved in as a new tenant. For each group, you can see whether rents moved up, stayed flat, or declined, giving you a clear read on the property's pricing power and leasing momentum.

This feature is used by acquisition teams during due diligence to validate rent roll trends mid-process, by lenders and debt brokers as part of their underwriting audit, and by asset managers tracking performance trends across their portfolio.

When should I use it?

Lease Trade Out is most valuable when you have two rent rolls from the same property taken at different points in time and you want to understand what happened between them.

For acquisition due diligence, you might receive a rent roll at the start of a marketing process and then get an updated one two months in. The Lease Trade Out shows you whether the rent growth trend the seller was presenting is real and continuing, or whether it was inflated leading up to marketing. For lender review, the comparison gives you a structured view of what changed between the borrower's initial submission and an updated rent roll received later in the process, rather than manually reconciling two spreadsheets. For asset management, parsing monthly rent rolls and running a Lease Trade Out each period gives you a structured view of leasing velocity and rent trends across your properties over time.

What does Lease Trade Out show me?

At the top of the report, you will see a summary of the key changes between the two periods—occupancy rate difference, number of vacant units, and average rent difference. This provides an at‑a‑glance read on whether the property moved in the right direction before you drill into the details.

Below the summary, Archer classifies activity into three groups:

1. Renewals are tenants who appear in both rent rolls. You can see whether rents increased, stayed flat, or decreased at renewal, which indicates the operator’s pricing power with existing residents.

2. New Leases are tenants who appear in the newer rent roll but not the older one. You can see whether new leases are being signed above or below prior‑period rents. New leases coming in above is a positive signal; new leases coming in below may point to softening demand or concession activity.

3. Vacated Units are units that were occupied in the older rent roll but are vacant in the newer one. You can see whether the tenants who left were paying above or below average rents. High‑rent tenants leaving can signal a retention issue; lower‑rent tenants turning over may represent an opportunity.

Each section of the report includes info icons that define the metric and explain why it matters.

Viewing by bed/bath combination or floor plan

By default, the report breaks out activity by bed and bath combination. If you want more granular detail, you can switch to the floor plan view, which breaks out the same data by individual floor plan. This is useful when you have multiple floor plans within the same bed/bath configuration and want to understand what is driving the trends at a more specific level.

How do I access Lease Trade Out?

You can access the Lease Trade Out view in three ways:

1. At the end of an underwrite: If multiple rent rolls have been parsed for the property, a Lease Trade Out button will appear at the end of the flow.

2. From the Property page: Open the relevant property, click the Actions menu, and select Lease Trade Out.

3. From Parsed Rent Rolls: On the All Activity page, navigate to the Parsed Rent Rolls tab, open an individual parsed rent roll record and choose the option to view a Lease Trade Out.

How do I run a Lease Trade Out?

Once you are in the Lease Trade Out view, you will see a timeline showing all rent roll snapshots available for the property. Use the two dropdowns to select the files you want to compare. Select the older file first and the newer file second -- the comparison is directional and tracks movement from the earlier snapshot to the later one. After selecting both files, Archer generates the comparison report broken out by the summary metrics, renewals, new leases, and vacated units. You can click back through other points on the timeline to compare different pairs of rent rolls.

Notes and limitations

Lease Trade Out requires at least two parsed rent rolls for the same property. If you only have one rent roll on file, you will not be able to run a comparison. Pre-lease rent rolls (common in student housing) are not fully supported in this flow at this time, and lease sign dates are not currently captured as a separate field. Future lease entries appear as purple dots on the timeline but are not included in the trade out analytics between two historical snapshots.